You’ve been there. Perhaps complaining about something or other and then someone says it – “Quit being so Anal!”

But what does that even mean anyway? And what’s it got to do with someone’s behaviour? One can assume it isn’t a public declaration of ones sexual preferences or Freudian desires.

And yet here we are, in 2012 civil society calling out of friends and co-workers in public with an adjective that clearly relates to a someone’s rectal passage.

The phrase is one I suspect many use without understanding it’s origins or intended meaning. It is Freudian and comes from the term “Anally retentive” which literally describes the childlike behaviour of not wanting to release ones bowels to defecate. Freud’s typically odd proposition was that children in the “anal” phase start trying to exert control over something they’ve created. Their poop.

It’s correct use would be to describe an adult who, say, won’t let go of their TPS report until it’s perfectly spell-checked. The phrase is now bandied about somewhat loosely for people who complain generally. It should relate specifically to being a control-freak and in particular not wanting to let something you’ve created go.

Of course, the ultimate inference is that despite the childish exertion of control over whatever it is, at the end of the day it’s still a load of crap.

And now you know.