Entries tagged with english: informal

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Sunday Word: Mudlark

mudlark [muhd-lahrk]

noun:
1a Chiefly British. a person who gains a livelihood by searching for iron, coal, old ropes, etc., in mud or low tide
1b someone who scavenges the banks and shores of rivers for items of value

2 Chiefly British Informal. a street urchin

3 either of two black and white birds, Grallina cyanoleuca, of Australia, or G. bruijni, of New Guinea, that builds a large, mud nest

(click to enlarge)
verb:
to play, dig, or search in mud or on muddy ground

Examples:

Mudlarking's popularity has grown steadily in recent years, driven in part by social media communities where enthusiasts share their finds, and tour groups that offer a trudge through the shards of history's castoffs (Megan Specia, Mudlarks Scour the Thames to Uncover 2,000 Years of Secrets, The New York Times, February 2020)

On a freezing January day during the recent cold snap, those walking along The Weirs might have been surprised to see Jane Eastman - Winchester's premier mudlark - waist-deep in the Itchen, bent double as she scoured the riverbed not so much for treasure, as trash. (Sebastian Haw, Hampshire mudlark looks for treasure and trash in Itchen, Hampshire Chronicle, January 2025)

Thames mud - damp and oxygen-free - is a 'magical preserver', Maiklem writes, and extracting an object from its embrace takes care, skill and an extraordinary level of patience, from both the mudlark and those who share her household. (Joanna Scutts, Unearthing London's history from a muddy riverbank, The Washington Post, December 2019)

"It always makes me smile, how emphatically people say, 'the piping shrike — that's the mudlark, we call it the mudlark' … and just how powerfully this myth has stuck," he said. (Daniel Keane, Magpies, magpie-larks and the striking mystery of South Australia's piping shrike, ABC News, March 2024)

Origin:

The first published use of the word was in 1785 as a slang term meaning 'a hog'. Its origin may have been a humorous variation on 'skylark'. By 1796, the word was also being used to describe "Men and boys ... who prowl about, and watch under the ships when the tide will permit." Mudlarks made a living in London in the 18th and 19th centuries by scouring the muddy shores of the River Thames for anything and everything that could be sold to eke out a living. This could include pilfering from river traffic. Modern mudlarks have sometimes recovered objects of archaeological value from the river's shores. These are either recorded as treasure under the Treasure Act of 1996 or submitted for analysis and review under the Portable Antiquities Scheme. (Word Genius)

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Friday Phrase: A Dog's Breakfast

Today's phrase is brought to you by

lindahoyland
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a dog's breakfast (idiom, UK informal)

something or someone that looks extremely untidy, or something that is very badly done

(Source: The Cambridge Dictionary)

Also, see The Hot Idioms Blog for further explanation and a comic.

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Sunday Word: Dunderhead

dunderhead [duhn-der-hed]

noun:
a stupid or slow-witted person; blockhead; numbskull.

Examples:

The Neat FM presenter also said that Prince Tsegah is a dunderhead, who does not deserve a minute of his time. (Ola Michael replies The Don, says he does not think with his head, The Guardian, February 2021)

Later, she called the cops on her boyfriend again; this time the dunderhead copped an aggravating attitude with the officers. (Larry Hobbs, CrimeScene, 7.03, The Brunswick News, July 2021)

I never saw such a dunderhead; can't you understand anything at all? (Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court)

I’d like to say that this coat can only be appreciated by someone with a sharpened aesthetic sense - not a dunderhead like you! (Doctor Who, 'The One Doctor' [audio drama] 2001)

Origin:

1620s, from head; the first element is obscure, perhaps from Middle Dutch doner, donder 'to thunder' (compare blunderbuss). Dunder also was a native dialectal variant of thunder. In the same sense were dunder-whelp (1620s); dunderpate (1754); dunderpoll (1801). (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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Sunday Word: Flummoxed

flummoxed[fluhm-uhks-d]

adjective:
completely unable to understand; utterly confused or perplexed

Examples:

As we move into 2021, investors are understandably flummoxed about the way forward. (Nehchal Sandhu, Investing In 2021 - Keep It Simple, Businessworld, January 2021)

The thrill of a cryptic clue is in how you are utterly flummoxed at first, and then after staring at it for a few minutes, you see the answer and realise how cunningly it was camouflaged the whole time and how cunning you were to have finally cracked it! (Mihir Balantrapu, Clued In #119 - Enter the charming world of cryptic clues, The Hindu, August 2020)

Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car. (Bill Bryson, Neither Here, Nor There: Travels in Europe)

Werner was flummoxed. He might have a way with words, but understanding a woman was way beyond his capabilities. Shaking his head, he returned to his desk, wondering what he’d done wrong. (Marion Kummerow, From the Ashes)

Origin:

The word first appears in mainstream English in the middle of the nineteenth century. Charles Dickens is the first writer known to have used it, in his Pickwick Papers: “And my 'pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don't prove a alleybi, he'll be what the Italians call reg'larly flummoxed, and that's all about it.”

Don't be misled by that reference to Italians, that's just a fancy of old Mr Weller. But there's evidence that the word is older in Scots and English dialects, in the same sense that we use it now, to be bewildered, perplexed, or puzzled, or to defeat or overcome somebody in argument (“That fair flummoxed 'im!”). At one time, Americans sometimes used it in the sense of failing or being defeated and so being exhausted or beaten, but that sense seems to have died out.

There's also the English dialect flummock, at one time known from Yorkshire down to Gloucestershire, to go about in a slovenly or untidy manner, or to make things untidy, or to confuse, which may be a slightly older version of the same word. It might also be linked to lommock or lummox, a clumsy or stupid person, known from the same area.

That's where the trail runs cold. The suggestion is that all these words are in some degree imitative of the noise of throwing things down noisily or untidily, so it may be associated with another dialect word flump, a heavy or noisy fall. (World Wide Words)

from flummox; 1837, cant word, also flummux, of uncertain origin, probably risen out of a British dialect (OED finds candidate words in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, southern Cheshire, and Sheffield). 'The formation seems to be onomatopœic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily.' [OED]. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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Sunday Word: Daffadowndilly, daffadowndilly

daffadowndilly, daffadowndilly [daf-uh-doun-dil-ee, daf-ee-doun-dil-ee]
noun:
(British informal) 1 daffodil; used at first in the generic sense, still a widespread popular name of the Yellow Daffodil; shrub: probably the Mezereon, which is still so called in Yorkshire 'from the slight similarity of the Greek name Daphne with Daffodil' (Britten and Holland).
2. (British informal, archaic) dandy (c 1830-80)
3. (as daffy-down-dilly) a lawyer who engages in double dealing, that is, representation of both sides in a case, for his own advantage.
Examples:

In my story I began to wonder why Mary and Dickon didn't take Colin to the garden sooner. When Mary and Dickon found the garden they also made friends with some of the animals. They also started gardening and placing flowers such as Daffydowndillys and Crocuses. (Nathan Kimpet, Seven Films That (Mostly) Get IT and Computers Right, The Secret Garden - Mrs. Seabaugh's Period 3 Literature Appreciation, August 2016)

"You are too easily surprised," said Mr Towkington. "Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word 'daffy-down-dilly'. It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing. No, I certainly advise you never to do it." (Dorothy L Sayers, Unnatural Death)

'Tis there's the daisy and sweet carnation,
The blooming pink, and the rose so fair;
The daffydowndilly, likewise the jilly-flowers
That scent the sweet fragrant air. (Richard Alfred Millikin, 'The Groves of Blarney')

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Origin:

This word has been around since at least the mid-16th century. It is a type of word known as a "sandwich word" in linguistics, because it wraps one word around another. The word daffodilly is split in two, and down has been sandwiched between the resulting parts: daffo-down-dilly. (alphadictionary.com)

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Sunday Word: Argle-bargle

argle-bargle [ahr-guhl-bahr-guhl]
noun or verb:
1 Copious but meaningless talk or writing; waffle
2 another word for argy-bargy (informal British); noisy quarrelling or wrangling

Examples:

My hint--if such you could call it--fell upon deaf ears; and he, seeming not to hear it, continued to argle-bargle, but betraying himself in every word he said. (Max Pemberton, Jewel Mysteries)

So starting in my first year of law school, I dutifully siphoned the extraneous, enjoyable stuff off the top of my head, leaving only room for a list of case names and pentasyllabic argle-bargle. (Brian Cubin, It’s Time For Lawyers To Smell The Roses, Above The Law, August 2020)

"Lookee, measters," said the man with the lantern, "'twun't do no good to argle-bargle about it. If Miss Eve be run away it be for we to run arter 'er, I rackon, or else go back t' bed." (John Jeffery Farnol, The Quest of Youth )

Origin:

1580s 'to argue obstinately, wrangle,' 'prob. a popular perversion of argue, or confusion of that word with haggle' [OED]. Reduplicated form argle-bargle is from 1822 (sometimes argy-bargy, 1857); As a noun, 'wrangling' from 1861.(Online Etymology Dictionary)

Argy-bargy was a late nineteenth-century modification of a Scots phrase, which appeared early in the same century in the form argle-bargle. The first part of this older version was a modification of argue. The second parts of the two forms, bargle and bargy, never had any independent existence — they are no more than nonsense rhyming repetitions of the first elements. (World Wide Words)

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Sunday Word: Splendiferous

splendiferous [splen-dif-er-uh s]
adjective:
(Informal) splendid, magnificent; fine; extraordinarily or showily impressive

Examples:

I want to write something most splendiferous to-day, and I am sure to find it in your face. (J M Barrie, Tommy and Grizel)

Near the garden is an extraordinary couture dress by Ms Chiuri and Mr Piccioli for Valentino; its metal-thread embroidery translates Cranach’s Adam and Eve, and its flora and fauna, into splendiferous ornament. (Jason Farago, 'Heavenly Bodies' Brings the Fabric of Faith to the Met, New York Times, May 2018)

Try the crispy fried faux-duck or the door-stopper-sized two-"cheese" and tomato toastie, and then order one of their splendiferous vegan custom cakes adorned with fruits, velvety icing and big native flowers.(Lenny Ann Low, Kurumac review: Japanese cool makes for a calming experience, New York Times, Nov 2019)

Origin:

Considered a playful elaboration since its re-birth in 1843, but in 15c it was good English, from Medieval Latin splendorifer, from splendor + ferre 'to bear, carry,"'from PIE root bher- (1) 'to carry,' also 'to bear children.' Compare 15c splendidious, also splendacious (1843). Bartlett (1859) offers this, allegedly from 'An itinerant gospeller... holding forth to a Kentuckian audience on the kingdom of heaven':

"Heaven, my beloved hearers," said he, "is a glorious, a beautiful, a splendiferous, an angeliferous place. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, it has not entered into the imagination of any Cracker in these here diggings what carryings on the just made perfect have up thar." (Online Etymology Dictionary)