Kerfuffle

I really like how kerfuffle sounds like a nonsense word, but isn't.

The Word of the Day for January 23 is:

kerfuffle • \ker-FUH-ful\ • noun
chiefly British : disturbance, fuss

Example sentence:
The school board's proposal to drop Shakespeare from the curriculum caused such a kerfuffle that the plan was soon scrapped.

Did you know?
"Fuffle" was first used in Scottish English, as early as the 16th century, as a verb meaning "to dishevel." The addition of the prefix "car-" (possibly derived from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning "wrong" or "awkward") didn't change the meaning of the word considerably. In the 19th century "carfuffle," with its variant "curfuffle," became a noun, and in the mid-20th century it was embraced by a broader population of English speakers and standardized to "kerfuffle." There is some dispute among language historians over how the altered spelling came to be favored. One theory holds that it might have been influenced by imitative words like "kerplunk" and "kerplop," where the syllable "ker-" is simply added for emphasis.

Comments

[Anne]

Hehe. You said "rumpus"...

[Jack]

Hey, that was going to be my word of the week! Just kidding. Didn't mean to cause a kurfuffle or a rumpus and certainly not a tumult.