184 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 1, 1887. 



as nouns, " their goings out and comings in," such goings 

 (on), and so forth. 



Fizzle. This word, used for a failure, is more commonly 

 heard in America, perhaps, than in England ; but it is only 

 in this sense an Americanism. 



Fizzle, To. To fail. This usage is also English, though 

 the vulgarism is not so common with us as in America. 



Flat out. To. To diminish in value— a Western phrase 

 suggested by the diminished productiveness of metallic layers 

 as they grow thinner. 



Flatfooted. The significance of this word in America 

 is very different from that of the French word plat-pud, 

 identical though the words may be in their primary mean- 

 ing. A French jilat-pied is a mean, contemptible fellow ; 

 but an American " flatfoot " is a man who stands firmly for 

 his party (and in America there is no higher praise than 

 this). When General Grant said he had put his foot down, 

 and meant to advance on that line if it took him all the 

 summer, he conveyed, mixed though his metaphorical 

 manner was, the American meaning of the expression " flat- 

 footed." Another mixed way of u.^ing this flat-foot simile 

 is found in the statement respecting a certain American 

 demagogue that he had " a flat-footed way of saying things 

 which impressed his neighbours, and was a rod in pickle for 

 them." 



Floor. To " hold the floor " is used in America as 

 equivalent to our English parliamentary phrase " to be in 

 possession of the House." Probably the expression had its 

 origin in the Irish usage, " to hould the flure," applied to 

 the longest lasting pah- of dancers. 



Flume. A slant passage or channel for a stream of water 

 to turn a mill, or for gold-washing, or the like. More 

 familiarly used in America than in England, though 

 thoroughly English. 



Flummux, To. This elegant expression, which in England 

 means to use up, overwhelm, and generally obliterate (I think 

 we have the elder Weller's authority somewhere for regarding 

 it as Italian), is used in America in a different sense, mean- 

 ing there to give in, feint, collapse. 



Flunk. This word appears to be familiar to American 

 colleges, signifying an utter failure in recitation — while the 

 verb to flunk signifies to fail utterly. 



Flunky. By no means equivalent to our English flunkey. 

 It is applied in American colleges to one who " flunks," and 

 in the American Stock Exchange to one who ventures to 

 speculate without sufiicient knowledge, and so comes to grief. 

 Probably all the usages of the words " flunk," " flunkey," 

 &c., are associated with the Low German " fluukern," to 

 flaunt or flutter, or with the Danish " flonkeren," to glitter 

 faintly and but for a moment. 



Fly, To, off the Handle. To lose temper, get unduly 

 excited. 



Folks. The vulgarism " folks " for '-folk" is common 

 enough in England ; but so much more common in America 

 that it may almost be regarded as an Americanism. Bart- 

 lett points out the mistake which English writers make who, 

 " in trying to imitate Yankee talk, make Americans say 

 ' folk.' " Of course the double plural " folks " is as incorrect 

 as"sheeps" would be, or"geeses," " mices," "mens," or 

 " childrens." 



Foreign. Americans differ from the English in their use 

 of this word, for whereas we in England never call 

 Americans " foreigners," Americans almost invariably apply 

 the term to English folk. An Englishman would say, for 

 example, of a gathering that Americans and foreigners were 

 present ; whereas an American would never think of dis- 

 tinguishing Englishmen in such a way from Frenchmen, 

 Germans, Italians, and so forth. Although the population 

 of America is seven-tenths foieign, the dislike to '• foreigners" 



is intense, and yearly gi'owing more so, especially among 

 those who, though not quite the latest comers, are but one 

 remove from being so. 



FoRTiNO, for aught I know. See Farzino. 



Fraud. The use of this word in America is peculiar. 

 Of course it is employed in its proper sense, to signify 

 trickery or a trick. But it is also applied to persons and 

 things in a sense which (farzino) is not known, except as 

 an Americanism, in the old country. A person is called a 

 '• fraud," not, as Bartlett says, wlien he is a cheat, or at 

 least not necessarily to signif)^ that he is a cheat, but when 

 he disappoints expectations. Thus an actor, of whom great 

 things had been heard, but who should be judged not so 

 clever as had been anticipated, would be described as a 

 " fraud," but certainly not with the idea of attributing 

 actual fraud to him. So a picture or a book or play which 

 proved disappointing is called a " fraud," without attribut- 

 ing (necessarily) any trickery to the painter or author. In 

 fact, the word is often applied to a landscape or other 

 natural object or phenomenon. For instance, I remember 

 hearing the Constellation of the Southern Cross called a 

 " fraud " by an American who saw it for the first time 

 under unfevourable conditions. (It always disappoints ex- 

 pectations unless first seen when nearly upright on the 

 southern horizon.) 



An amusing illustration of the way in which the Ameri- 

 can use of this word is commonly misapprehended in 

 England occurred a few years ago at a meeting of the 

 Astronomical Society. 'Mv. Burnham, of Chicago, the well- 

 known observer of double stars, had pointed out a number 

 of blunders in Admiral Smyth's " Bedford Cycle," and had 

 spoken of the book as a " fraud," using the word in the 

 strictly American sense. Unfortunately, it so happened 

 that some of the mistakes were curiously suggestive of the 

 process which schoolboys call " fudging," meaning any pro- 

 cess by which results are made to look as if they had been 

 fairly worked out when they have really been " cribbed." 

 Fully persuaded that Mr. Burnham, in calling the " Bed- 

 ford Cycle ' a "fraud," m&ant to call the late Admiral 

 Smyth a cheat, several fellows at the meeting denounced 

 Mr. Burnham up hill and down dale. Now it is quite pos- 

 sible that under cross-examination he would have admitted 

 that he did not think all the observations recorded in the 

 " Cycle " had been really made. But to think a man not 

 strictly truthful is one thing, to proclaim him a liar is 

 another. Knowing the Amei'ican use of the word " fraud," 

 I thought it only just to my absent friend to point out that 

 Ml-. Burnham's calling the " Bedford Cycle " a " fraud " 

 implied only that he had been disappointed in it. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that in a gathering of Englishmen, only 

 four or five of whom knew anything whatever about Ameri- 

 canisms, the explanation was greeted with ironical cheers, 

 and supposed to be a mere bit of special pleading. But it 

 was just all the same. The word "fraud," as Americans 

 use it, no more implies (of necessity) intentional fraud ulence 

 than our English slang word " sell " implies of necessity an 

 actual sale. By the way, the word " fraud," as thus used 

 in America, is very nearly, but not quite, equivalent to our 

 English " sell." 



Freeze, To. To " freeze to " any one means to cling 

 to him. The expression is equivalent to our English slang 

 " to cotton to " any one. 



Freight. — Besides its use as in England, tliis word, in 

 conjunction with " car," signifies a carriage on a goods 

 train. A " luggage van " on a passenger train is commonly 

 called a " baggage car " in America; a "goods train" is 

 called a " freight train," and what we ought to call a " goods 

 car," a " goods van " (but probably railway men call it 

 otherwise), is in America called a " freight car." 



