Is "to go berserk" used by native speakers or is it obsolete? [closed]

Is "to go berserk" used by native speakers or is it obsolete? BTW, what is the best online source to check whether a phrase or word is obsolete? Thanks!

Solution 1:

NO, it is not an obsolete expression:

go berserk:

(informal) to become very angry and violent.

• Dad went berserk when he found out.

(Longman Dictionary)

From: Dailysignal.com 15 November 2019:

Why the Left Went Berserk After William Barr’s Notre Dame Speech.

From Mancherstereveningnews.co.uk 19 November 2019

Drunk teenager went berserk after being told she couldn't use restaurant toilet

Google Books shows its usage as been on the increse since it was first introduced in the early 20th century.

A brief history of the term “berserk” from the Grammarist:

In Old Norse writings, berserkers are warriors who fight in a furious, uncontrollable, possibly drug-induced trance that gives them great strength and courage. The word came to English in the early 19th century and was initially used mainly in reference to the warriors, but it was soon shortened to berserk and gained its secondary, now more common meaning: frenetically upset or violent. The adjective is often embedded in the verb phrase go berserk, similar in construction and meaning to phrases such as go crazy and go insane.

Berserk is more closely synonymous with wild and frantic than with crazy and insane, which are broad enough to cover behaviors that are only moderately out of the ordinary. A berserk state is an extreme one, and the berserk person is not easily calmed.

Solution 2:

Word of caution

Google is not an academic authority and these results will be very biased towards written English and a more computer-savvy demographic. Nonetheless, it's a really fast way to get some intuition in phrase usage.

Google Trends shows terms found in Google searches which may or may not be indicative of usage in spoken language. It should not be treated as authoritative. Google claims it is measuring "Interest over time" which might be a proxy for usage.

This answers the second part of OP's question:

How to check if a phrase is obsolete?

An easy method to check for the popularity and trends of certain phrases is by using Google Trends. In your case, 'go berserk' shows higher usage until 2006 after which it decreased in usage, except for a large peak in popularity around 2016.

Further nice features of Google Trends are:

• Comparing different expressions for popularity → find the more common expressions
• Geographic usage of expressions → This is especially useful for situations of US vs UK English

Small example

This analysis is based on some of the alternatives suggested in the comments. It clearly shows that all suggested alternatives (beast mode and go ham) are more popular, with 'beast mode' being the most popular. By looking at the trend you see that it has probably reached the peak of its popularity and has already started going out of style.

Geographic data shows that 'going ham' is mainly used in the UK, where it is just as popular as 'beast mode'.

Solution 3:

A Google search for pages with instances of either "go berserk" or "went berserk" returns 1.7 million combined results.

"go berserk" | "went berserk"

It's still very much a valid and current expression.

Solution 4:

Word of caution

Google Trends shows terms found in Google searches which may or may not be indicative of usage in spoken language. It should not be treated as authoritative. Google claims it is measuring "Interest over time" which might be a proxy for usage.

A more modern US expression for this is to go postal. Here's the Google Trend comparison with go berserk, showing almost an order of magnitude of difference:

From Wikipedia:

Going postal is an American English slang phrase referring to becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence. The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1986 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public.

Indeed, the search terms are not exactly the same as general use. Arguably, some of the searches for "going postal" are there because people have heard an expression which they didn't know. Still, they had to hear about it in the first place, meaning the expression is widely used.