Query: "throw a wobbly" (have a fit)

[Jonathon Green]

Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
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> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
> Subject:      Query: "throw a wobbly" (have a fit)
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>      One of my students mentioned "throw a wobbly" (= throw a fit).
> She's from Jefferson City, Missouri but isn't sure where she heard the expression.
>
>     I see "wobbly" listed in Jonathon Green's _Cassell's Dictionary of Slang_ with a relevant meaning: "[1930s+] a fit of nerves, of panic, of bad temper; thus one who has such attacks."  But I never heard of this word before.
>
>     Is anyone familiar with this "wobbly" (and "throw a wobbly") in U.S. usage?
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
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I fear I have to amend the phrase's dating, but the term is certainly
common in the UK (as well as Australia and N.Z., where one finds the
synonymous _chuck a mental_ and _chuck a spas_). The OED currently finds
its first cite in 1977, in an Australian newspaper and I have done no
better. However I am pretty sure that it comes from _wobbler_, and that
can be fund since the 1930s, orig. in Noel Ersine's _Underworld and
Prison Slang_ (1933) where it is defined as a 'wingding' or 'ding'. The
cant use of _wingding_ seems to refer specifically to a fake fit thrown
by a beggar in order to elicit sympathy and thus money from those who
witness it. In both cases the underlying image is of the shaking,
fit-wracked body.

JG

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