flub

[Benjamin Zimmer]

* flub, v. = bungle (a golf shot)

Peter Davies' _Historical Dictionary of Golfing  Terms_ has a 1902
cite from _Golf Illustrated_. See:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TDNBfLsvZUsC
Here it is from a few years earlier (also antedating the earliest cite
for the noun "flub" in Davies and HDAS, from 1900):

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1899 _Bangor (Maine) Daily Whig & Courier_ 8 Aug. 5/4 A player
overheard a few words while making a brassy shot, and although it
proved one of his best efforts of the match, that noise so troubled
him that he flubbed the next.
[19th C US Newspapers]
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And here's another sense of "flub" I don't see in any dictionary:

* flub, n. = flubdub (bombastic language)

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1887 _Atchison (Kansas) Daily Champion_ 15 June 6/2 The only blemish
on the article was what newspaper men call the "flub" that appeared in
it here and there. "Flub" is the result of "a manifest attempt to
write rhetorical and flowery sentences," as the level headed city
editor put it. [Reprinted from _The Writer_]
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1895 _The Writer_ (Mar.) 31/2 Keep posted on current events, write
plainly and avoid flub.
http://books.google.com/books?id=7yA-1ON7FQwC
[Reprinted in 1895 _Penny Press_ (Minneapolis, Minn.) 8 Apr. 5/2]
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1901 _The Writer_ (Feb.) 17/2 The most frequent sin against good taste
in writing is trying to dress up a common subject or idea in unusual
and high-sounding words. Different names are given to this fault: in
slang it is called 'high-falutin'; printers call it 'flub.' [Quoting
John F. Genung, "Outlines of Rhetoric" (1893?)]
http://books.google.com/books?id=7k5fksqZo0oC
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--Ben Zimmer

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