Flabberdegaz - Theatre Etymology - Part 29

Flabberdegaz sounds like a name for an old man that does nonsensical things. While you might call an old man like that a flabberdegaz, the real meaning of the word is basically flubbed lines in a performance of a play. These can take many forms. An actor may forget lines and make up other lines. It may be that the actors uses lots of filler lines like er and uh. Flabberdegaz can also be applied to the actor himself. It is thought that instead of flabberdegaz, sometimes the term Marjo McFluffer was used.

The word comes from the late 19th and early 20th century. It was defined as "Words interpoated to dissemble a lapse of memory; gag. Also, imperfect utterance or bad acting" in the 1890 book Slang and its Analogues Past and Present: A Dictionary Historical and Comparatie of the Heterodox Speech of All Classes of Years With Synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, Etc. The book was either a.nonymously written or written by somebody who went by John . The term was defined again in 1897 in the first volume (A-K) of A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Gypsies' Jargon, and Other Irregular Phraseology. The book was compiled and edited by Albert Barrere and Charles G. Leland.

It was defined again in 1918 in the fifth volume of The American Dialect Society's Dialect Notes when it gave the defintion as, "Talk; vain imaginings in speech." It said it was a general term, but that by 1918, it was aso a rare term. However, sixteen years later, flabberdegaz was defined as "nonsensical talk" in A Dictionary of American Slang by Maurice Weseen.

It wasn't defined again until 1973 when The Routeledge Dictionary of Historical, Sixth Edition by Eric Partridge, abridged by Jacqueline Simpson wrote that it means "a gag or stop-gap words; a pice of bad acting or instance of imperfect utterance." The word wasn't defined again until 2005 when it was defined as "vain imaginingss in speech" and was said to come from the Pacific Northwest. Informal English: Puncture Ladies, Egg Harbors, Mississippi Marlbes, and Other Curious Words and Phrases of North America by Jeffery Kacirk says that this definition come from a source with the name Lehman.

The origin of the word is not certain, but it is thought that it may come from the nonce word (a word coined and used only for a particular occasion) flabberdegasky or the word flabbergast. Flabbergast means "to overcome with surprise and bewilderment" or "to astound." It is a variant of the word flabagast which is thought to have come from the words flabby and aghast. Flabby comes from an alteration of flappy or the Middle English flabband meaning attested once. Flappy is the adjective form of the word flap. Flap comes from the Middle English word flappe meaning a bloe or a slap or the Middle English word flappen meaning to hit or to slap. This can be compared to the Dutch words flap and flappen.

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