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The world will little note nor long remember the Great Scheduling Kerfuffle. But the episode speaks volumes — none of them attractive — about the current state of political affairs. The squabble began with President Obama looking petty and partisan and ended with House Speaker John Boehner looking churlish and disrespectful. If the two had gotten together to figure out how to make Americans think even less of Washington politicians, they couldn’t have done much better.
That was the first time I read the horrible word 'kerfuffle' in a newspaper. And didn't know what exactly it meant, and how it is pronounced, how old it is, and where it descends from.
And ran to the online Webster...only to see that it is a very young word as words go...it first appeared as late as 1946...and just means:
So what is wrong with 'disturbance'; and if it is too polysyllabic, the other word, 'fuss'?
...Posted by Ishani
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In this speech scheduling kerfuffle, Obama and Boehner both lose
The world will little note nor long remember the Great Scheduling Kerfuffle. But the episode speaks volumes — none of them attractive — about the current state of political affairs. The squabble began with President Obama looking petty and partisan and ended with House Speaker John Boehner looking churlish and disrespectful. If the two had gotten together to figure out how to make Americans think even less of Washington politicians, they couldn’t have done much better.
That was the first time I read the horrible word 'kerfuffle' in a newspaper. And didn't know what exactly it meant, and how it is pronounced, how old it is, and where it descends from.
And ran to the online Webster...only to see that it is a very young word as words go...it first appeared as late as 1946...and just means:
"disturbance, fuss".
Talking of 'disturbance'...I recall my ground-floor neighbor below my flat B-140 at IIT KGP...one Dr. XYXZ. My son and I were night birds and always voluble. And Dr. XYXZ used to get furious with our noise and run up and shout at us:
"You are DISH-TUR-BING my sleep!" and warn us of imminent disasters like complaining to the Director, or worse, Police.
We were quiet for ten minutes after he left...and resumed our high decibels.
Coming to the ugly word, kerfuffle, I thought that passage would be the end of it...but no!...journalists were charmed by it for some reason or other...perhaps the Obama Effect...and I found that word cropping up a dozen times in articles that appeared later on in our own DC and ToI.
Such words are 'vogue words'...their lifetime is short in print but they destroy many readers' peace before they die out.
On the other hand, 'spiel' is a nice-sounding hoary word, new to me, that has recently gained journalistic momentum out of the blue. Another visit to Webster and the meaning that the journos wish to convey is:
"to talk volubly or extravagantly"
That figures...that 'spiel' was what we were doing to Dr. XYXZ who was 'kerfuffled' so badly by us...that passive voice inflection of 'kerfuffle' is mine..copyrighted please!
My ignorance of English words is phenomenal...I run to the Webster all the time. But I was the University First in my Pre-University (Entrance) Exam at AU in 1958. Coming from a rustic school at Muthukur, my knowledge of English was bookish and I couldn't speak in English when I joined AU.
My first slap was from a classmate whose name is Murali Jawaharlal....Jawaharlals and Gandhis were common names then in AP...we were very patriotic.
Murali was convent-educated, born and brought up in the city of Vizagh, handsome, and fluent in English. The very first day of our meeting up in the bus stand outside the AU Out Gate, I was a bit voluble in what I was trying to say in Telugu, and he quietly rebuked me:
"Don't B-A-L-L!"
I was stunned, not so much by the rebuke, but by the word BALL...the only ball I knew was the footer one.
I couldn't make out what exactly did he mean and I missed my Father very badly...he was till then my walking dictionary.
I went home and opened my Uncle's COD and looked for all the meanings of 'ball'...but nothing fitted. And was lost for half an hour till I tried all the spelling variants of BALL and discovered the right word:
"BAWL!"
Then on Murli became my best friend and guru.
There is one word on which I bet heavily and lost.
Prof SKG of the Phy Dept at IIT KGP in the 1980s said he was offered a 'lectureship'. I and DB were the listeners. And as we returned to our joint office I challenged DB that SKG was making a mistake and it should have been:
"Lecturership"
For, we teachers teach and we professors profess and we lecturers lecture...we all got our professorships recently but not 'professship'.
And I ran home and looked into my fat Webster, only to get crestfallen.
It read:
"Lectureship"...irregular formation...
DAMN!
...Posted by Ishani
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