That may be up there with "nine ways from Sunday" which we haven't found an answer to either. Interestingly, while Quinion disputes the theory of an electrical short, that is Word Detective's theory. I think Quinion makes a good point in disputing that rationale, and I have always trusted Quinion over Word Detective anyway.
I just looked for it on Dave Wilton's Wordorigins site and came up with nothing. He states that the saying gained popularity around WWI as a disparaging remark against Germans, but the term predates WWI, thus isn't the origin.
This excerpted from John Ciardi, Good Words to You (1987):
Am. slang. Now rare except in old-timer usage. There is in fact no recorded evidence of origin or derivation. This may be an idiom properlerly glossed "u & u," origin unknown and by now unknowable.
But to borrow a choice locution from Partridge, i will "trepidate" that it is akin to "all petered out," in which peter is from L. petere, to fart (at root, "like a long tapering fart - it trails off to nothing"). In the 1930s I workd as a ditch digger and jackhammer operator under various Italian straw bosses whose common way of signaling that a machine was down or that the work had reached a dead end was to gesture tthumbs down while blowing a lip-fart, pf'tt, commonly with a trilled r -- pfrrit! "She'sa all pfrrrit!" I came to think of this as some sort of regional south Itiian, but in Michigan in 1941 I worked for a Swedish landscaper who signaled frequent equipment failure in the same way.
William Morris and Mary Morris, Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, suggest a derivation from the once-popular comic strip The Katzenjammer Kids. Hans and Fritz were fiendish brats dedicated to breaking all things. Yet some question remains. Why, for instance, was it not on the hans?
These questions asked and these possibilites reviewed, there seems to be no firm answer; neither is there likely to be one.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: <wordnerd>,
Thanks for that, it's made me feel alot better on a number of levels. Firstly because it is some strange American phrase that it was unlikely I would know and secondly (and most importantly) because its association with 'old timers' means that my ignorance of it implies great youth on my part. Mind you, what does that say about CW? lol
Kaztenjammer :- as stated above, means 'hangover', but literally it's 'cat's lament, or yowling'. Other terms for 'hangover' in German are Kater (also the term for tomcat) and Haarweh (literally 'hair pain').
Hmm - turn my back for a day and DOAD is calling me old (gasp!) but at least you all have found a lovely German version of my nickname for me! I had no idea that Katzenjammer was Caterwauler in Deutsch (especially as I only studied French). But I have strong German roots in my family tree, so maybe I'll switch over to Katz. Hmm . . .
Puttin on the Katz?
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
PS: I've amended my post above to add, at the end, one more sentence from Ciardi's account.
When you compare it with the Quinion account cited in the post that started in this thread, you'll see that Quinion has misstated Ciardi's position. You'll also see that Quinion has borrowed his phrasing heavily from Ciardi.
Originally posted by jheem: Kaztenjammer :- as stated above, means 'hangover',
It must be a fairly recent meaning, since when the Katzenjammer Kids were popular ( December,1897 - 1950s) the implication was that they were raising a ruckus, NOT getting drunk.
I've also heard German speakers say, "jammerkatzen" instead of "katzenjammer." What does the reverse formation imply?
We've briefly discussed "on the fritz" before, around last Thanksgiving when we were talking about public computers in libraries. I mentioned that if my library didn't have computers available I wouldn't be posting, since my computer was on the fritz (it's okay, now ... well, sorta). Someone - Bob, I think - posted a link. The point is I looked for this with the search feature and can't find it. I've looked for other things that I thought we had talked about and coudn't find them. Why? Did they get lost in cyberspace when infopop "improved" our service? Or am I doing something wrong?
