Flummadiddle

Might be known to some of you but was new to me.

PMs please.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

...in your inbox as we speak.

Mine's in your mailbox too.

My tasty offering is on its way.

At the moment I have eight altogether including the genuine flummadiddle.

Anyone else want to provide a definition?

OK all you flummadiddlers, here are the choices.


1. A euphemism for fun sex for between friends, without romance or long term commitments.

2. An orchestral drum used by primitive tribes, made from a spicy pudding overcooked until its crust is hard and resonant. Usually played with chicken drumsticks.

3. a small musical instrument, much like an ocarina, formed in whimsical shapes like animals and people

4. A type of drum roll.

5. a puppet on the (US) kids' TV show Howdy Doody from the early 1950s. The Flummadiddle was inept, floppy, rather dachshund-shaped, generally bumbling, and totally endearing.

6. A person who habitually confuses conversations or strategies by twisting facts or engaging in double-speak; a situation that is muddled by flummadiddltry.

7. To pace around in a confused manner; to fidget.

8. A dessert, consisting of a baked mash of stale bread, pork fat, molasses, cinnamon and allspice.

9. a chamber pot or a commode chair

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Wow...aren't these fun daffynitions? (flummadiddltry? ). I am going to guess that Asa wrote #1.

I am going to go with #3.

I guessed the second one as Asa's, but the first two are both Asa-like, which means we have an Asa and a Bizzaro Asa out there, doesn't it?

hmmmm. I think I'll go with #4, though all of them sound fake to me!

Wordmatic

8 for me. Hinted at in # 2?!

I thought that I would wait and wait,
Until your posts were in.
But hunger drove me to number eight;
Ah, gluttony is a sin.

#8 please...

If it's #8, it's incompletely defined: it has to have plums in it (Pflummen).

Most of the others are duplications of one kind or another: foods or musical instruments. I forget whose Eponymic Rule that is but applying it disqualifies them all.

I guess I'll have to pick Number Seven, then, in preference to the flummery and the puppet and the chamberpot.

8. for me, please.

Any more flummadiddling before I post the answers?

(And isn't it great to find a word where it doesn't seem to matter what it means, a word that seems to mean whatever I want it to mean in any sentence I care to make?

Well, it looks you are all flummadiddled. Tomorrow night I'll be off for a flummadiddle myself and won't have time to post a reply. So without further flummadiddle here are the flummadiddling answers.

1. A euphemism for fun sex for between friends, without romance or long term commitments.
jo didn't manage to flummadiddle anyone with this

2. An orchestral drum used by primitive tribes, made from a spicy pudding overcooked until its crust is hard and resonant. Usually played with chicken drumsticks.
pearce (surprisingly for such a lucid definition ) also failed in the flummadiddle stakes

3. a small musical instrument, much like an ocarina, formed in whimsical shapes like animals and people
However caterwauller managed to flummadiddle Kalleh

4. A type of drum roll.
while arnie gave wordmatic a thorough flummadiddling

5. a puppet on the (US) kids' TV show Howdy Doody from the early 1950s. The Flummadiddle was inept, floppy, rather dachshund-shaped, generally bumbling, and totally endearing.
haberdasher's may well be a flummadiddler but he failed to tempt anyone with this bit of flummadiddlatry

6. A person who habitually confuses conversations or strategies by twisting facts or engaging in double-speak; a situation that is muddled by flummadiddltry.
and wordmatics flummadiddleness was also unsuccesful

7. To pace around in a confused manner; to fidget.
But Kalleh flummed haberdasher's diddle

8. A dessert, consisting of a baked mash of stale bread, pork fat, molasses, cinnamon and allspice.
While the usual flummadiddlers extraordinaire jo and arnie were joined by neo-flummadiddler pearce in getting the right answer. How do you guys know all this flummadiddle.

9. a chamber pot or a commode chair
Saddly my own bit of flummaddidliosity also bombed without getting anyone.

You probably figured out that I like the word.

Actually, I think I flumadiddled several people into thinking that I was Asa.

As to how I know flummadiddle... I knew that all that useless stuff I learned in medieval recreation would come in handy some day. A flumadiddle is a very popular Friday night pudding at SCA weekend camping events. It's been around for a long time. I suspect that it has its origins in flummery, since the molasses and other additions were designed to cover the fact that your guests were being served old stale bread and pork fat (or sometimes mutton fat -- ew..., can we say tallow?) instead of a fine pheasant or lamb pie.

5. a puppet on the (US) kids' TV show Howdy Doody from the early 1950s. The Flummadiddle was inept, floppy, rather dachshund-shaped, generally bumbling, and totally endearing.

haberdasher's may well be a flummadiddler but he failed to tempt anyone with this bit of flummadiddlatry

Not so far from correct, really. The alteration of a single word will do it. Those of us beyond A Certain Age who recall the Howdy Doody Show may recognize the Flub-A-Dub, of that description...

Arnie, are you a drummer? I was so sure your drum roll was correct, because I remembered an old friend in high school who showed me a drum beat called a paradiddle.
(I did remember Flub-a-dub too, so couldn't be flummadiddled by that one.)
Wordmatic

As I told Bob privately, it was such an interesting word that as soon as I guessed the wrong answer , I looked it up in Onelook, and then chose the Worthless Word for the Day dictionary. In his dictionary he defines it as "[U.S. slang, perhaps alteration of flummery] also flumadiddle, flumdiddle 1) something foolish or worthless : nonsense, trash 2) bauble, frill." Now that definition I would have chosen.

I wonder if the "nonsense" definition is more common in the U.S.

Wordmatic told me about this discussion of the word by Word Detective.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

I'm not a drum player, but I knew from somewhere about "paradiddle". I also knew that a "flam" was one of the rudiments of drumming. I hoped that it might fool someone who knew a little about it!

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
pearce (surprisingly for such a lucid definition ….

Now Bob, what is that supposed to mean?

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
I'm not a drum player, but I knew from somewhere about "paradiddle". I also knew that a "flam" was one of the rudiments of drumming. I hoped that it might fool someone who knew a little about it!

Well, in that, you certainly succeeded--a very little was all I knew and that's all it took. I'll bet if we talked to drummers they would tell us flammadiddle actually is a kind of drumbeat. (Nope, I see they call it a flam paraddiddle.)

Fun word! Sounds like a delicious dessert, too. But the best part of flummadiddle is saying it! It makes my tongue giggle!

per OED:

U.S.
1. (See quot.)
1872 SCHELE DE VERE Americanisms 338 Flummadiddle..consists of stale bread, pork-fat, molasses, cinnamon, allspice, [etc.]; by the aid of these materials a kind of mush is made, which is baked in the oven and brought to the table hot and brown. 1884 SALA Illustr. Lond. News 19 July 51/2.

2. slang. Nonsense, humbug; also, something trivial or ridiculous.
1850 in WENTWORTH Amer. Dial. Dict. s.v., Fuma~diddle, flummydiddle. 1854 M. J. HOLMES Tempest & Sunshine iv. 51 What does she want of any more flummerdiddle notions? 1882 E. CUMMINGS in Chicago Advance 21 Sept., Directions for..crocheting all sorts of flummediddles. 1882 Century Mag. Oct. 837 Well, see all that flummer-diddle he got off about it. 1941 Sat. Even. Post 25 Oct. 35/3 An' does you try any fuma~diddles, you is right away gwine happen to a catastrophe.
---
so, from mush to nonsense. (I don't make these things up, ya know..)

quote:

Originally posted by Caterwauller:
Fun word! Sounds like a delicious dessert, too. But the best part of flummadiddle is saying it! It makes my tongue giggle!

Really? I'm now rather glad I live too far away to be getting a dinner invitation.

Rats! Where was I!?!? Once again I failed to note a new word. GRRRRR!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Rats! Where was I!?!? Once again I failed to note a new word. GRRRRR!!!!

Ironic that I should be accused of wirting two of them when I wasn't even present! Sheesh! I gotta change my style!

See how famous you are Asa? Now scan down the list and note the new Entitled game, just waiting for your fabulous entry!

WM

Anyone come across Anu Garg's "Word" for today? You can see it here...

And did everyone see my nomination for the next bluffing game?

Saw it. Thinking...(always dangerous.) It does sound vaguely X rated, so I am thinking some more!

I'm also waiting for one or two more submissions for my Entitled. But you know, Jo, slow-cooking word games do not stand a chance in this forum, with all the hyperactivity over Four Letters, Six Letters, Jumbo V, Names, dactyls, FIDO and all the other quick-hit word games. I "cleverly" posted a reminder for entitled yesterday a.m. to bring it to the top of the list, and it was instantly buried. It's now down in the queue about 10th where no one will see it! Guess I'll have to just close it out by the end of the day.
Those who want to take advantage of one last chance should click here.

Wordmatic