flub

[Wilson Gray]

Apropos of nothing, didn't Howdy Doody(?) have a friend named "Flub-A-Dub"?

-Wilson

On 11/8/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      flub
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> * 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):
>
> -----
> 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]
> -----
>
> And here's another sense of "flub" I don't see in any dictionary:
>
> * flub, n. = flubdub (bombastic language)
>
> -----
> 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_]
> -----
> 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]
> -----
> 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
> -----
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

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