Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Scurryfunge

 

Scurryfunge is a perfect slang-o-rama word for the winter holidays... although maybe not for this year. Read on and you'll see why...

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According to the site For Reading Addicts, this marvelous word means to rush around the house, cleaning up, before company arrives.

With many of us hunkering down in pandemic mode, there's probably not going to be much scurryfunging around, unless we feel compelled to straighten up for those in our "bubble" (or for those areas that appear in our Zoom screens).

Wordfoolery suggests the following etymology:

Scurry is a well-known verb to indicate rushing, particularly of the mouse variety. Funge is a bit trickier to track down but the best guesses relate to changing something, in this case from being messy to being superficially tidy and ordered.

It might be... Middle English? Old English? Favorite Forgotten Words pulls up a date of 1882. I can't find it at all on Google Ngram. StackExchange has an interesting conversation about the word here. 

Hmmm. 

Well, while scurryfunging around, I like to listen to music for the season. Right now, I'm partial to the carol "The Holly and the Ivy." (Holly and ivy being associated with winter celebrations long before Christmas, according to this post on The Conversation.) So, here's a little musical interlude to hum along to as you scurryfunge.