Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Flim-flam

Another "f" word for slang-o-rama... no, not THAT word. I'm talking about flim-flam, hot on the heels of last week's flibbertigibbet. (What can I say? The number of intriguing slang words starting with "f" or "b" seem to far outnumber those that start with other letters of the alphabet.)

So, what is flim-flam and where did this odd f-f word construction come about? Well...
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The Online Etymological Dictionary was brief and not very helpful:

also flimflam, 1530s, a contemptuous echoic construction, perhaps connected to some unrecorded dialectal word from Scandinavian (compare Old Norse flim "a lampoon"). From 1650s as a verb. Related: Flim-flammer.

The Word Detective has a bit more, bundling a discussion of flimflam together with claptrap and flapdoodle (remember what I said about "f" words?), noting that "some of our most colorful English words are used to mean nonsense." From there, the Detective rolls up his/her sleeves and plunges in:

“Flim-flam” dates back to the 16th century, and from the beginning meant “nonsense or idle talk” as well as “humbug, a flimsy pretense or deception.”  The distinctive trait  to “flim-flam” is its transparency;  a “flim-flam” is not a sophisticated scam or con but rather the sort of shallow trick that a reasonable person wouldn’t fall for.  As a verb, for example, “flim-flam” in the US came to mean specifically “to distract or confuse a customer so as to be able to shortchange him.”  The origin of “flimflam” is somewhat uncertain, but the “flim” part may be based on a English dialectical word of Scandinavian origin similar to the Old Norse “flim” (a lampoon or mockery).  Such a Norse origin of “flim,” if true, would be a legacy of the Viking invasions of Britain in the 8th to 11th centuries.

According to Collins Dictionary, a flimflam man (which redirects to the non-gender-specific flimflam artist) is a trickster or swindler. 

Hmmm. I can use that!

Watch out for the flim-flam man!
By Feliks Pęczarski - wolnelektury.pl, Public Domain, Link