Meaning:
Crazy; eccentric.
Background:
Bats are, of course, the erratically flying mammals and `belfries' are bell
towers, sometimes found at the top of churches. `Bats in the belfry' refers
to someone who acts as though he has bats careering around his topmost part,
that is, his head.
It has the sound of a phrase from Olde Englande and it certainly has the
imagery to fit into any number of Gothic novels based in English parsonages
or turreted castles. In fact, it comes from the USA and is not especially
old. All the early citations are from American authors and date from the
start of the 20th century; for example, this piece from the Ohio newspaper
The Newark Daily Advocate, October 1900:
To his hundreds of friends and acquaintances in Newark, these purile [sic]
and senseless attacks on Hon. John W. Cassingham are akin to the vaporings
of the fellow with a large flock of bats in his belfry."
The use of `bats' and `batty' to denote odd behaviour originated around the
same time as `bats in the belfry' and the terms are clearly related. Again,
the first authors to use the words are American:
1903 A. L. Kleberg - Slang Fables from Afar: "She ... acted so queer ...
that he decided she was Batty."
1919 Fannie Hurst - Humoresque: "`Are you bats?' she said."
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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To most technogeeks in the surrounding glassy office towers, the sprawling
ancient warehouse doesn't belong. The 20-feet white-walled box trucks strewing
the parking lot of a Chinese moving company which takes the southern half. The
north entrance sees guys, and often girls, of all sizes, shapes, and races, from
the beefy tough-looking type baring their tatooed forearms to skinny nerds
wearing coke bottle glasses. At a closer look, many of them wear ugly califlower
ears and white tapes around their knuckles. Bats in and out of a belfry, one may
conclude.
