Dolores dares you to say "it's just semantics"
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the compact OED, and Wordie.com, kerfuffle is a noun, chiefly British, meaning “disturbance”, “commotion”, or “fuss”. It comes from an alteration of carfuffle, from Scots car- (probably from Scottish Gaelic cearr — wrong, awkward, or to twist or bend) + fuffle (to become disheveled). Synonyms include “hurly burly” and “flutter”.
There’s another good discussion of Kerfuffle at The Mavens’ Word of the Day (Random House): “a noun meaning ‘disorder, flurry, agitation’ or a verb meaning ‘to disorder’. It has also been spelled kafuffle, kufuffle, gefuffle, and cafoufle.”
Some attribute the contemporary popularization of the word to LJ and other message boards. Others point to sources like James Tranto of the Wall Street Journal who used it frequently in his columns during the 2004 presidential election cycle.
In recent web usage, kerfuffle connotes something fluffy, light, and unimportant. A trivial matter blown out of proportion. Like Rachel Ray wearing a controversial scarf in a Dunkin Donuts commercial, which the NYT reported on as “A Tempest in an Iced-Coffee Cup.”
“Fuffle” is supposed to be onomatopoeic, like, “bang”. I think of it like a flock of birds that gets disturbed:
Only to settle back down again as if nothing happened:
The idea that kerfuffles are trivial affairs that rile up superficial overblown emotions in a community, only to disappear like so much hot air, is not, I think, typically a good description of what is going on when Romanceland has its fights. I wonder why don’t we use words like “debate”, “argument”, “disagreement”, “dissension”, “dispute”, or “controversy” to refer to these events? Are we giving in to the idea that what we argue about is trivial? Are we, by making light, kowtowing to feminine conventions of agreeableness, cooperativeness, and niceness at all costs?
Think about some recent and/or famous kerfuffles:
- What authors owe to loyal readers of a series (Lori Foster’s recent book in a contemporary series features fantasy and time travel elements, Suzanne Brockmann’s latest in her SEALS series features an unexpected pairing, JR Ward, etc.)
- Whether the private beliefs and behavior of authors should influence readers’ buying decisions
- Whether online phrases and terms can be trademarked, formally or not, and what, if anything, is owed to their originators
- The variety of relationships a reviewer can have to an author, and whether and how such connections compromise the review
- Whether an author has to live it to write it ( “live it” being, mainly, sexual orientation)
- Plagiarism — what constitutes it, how to handle it as an individual and a community
- My own mini kerfuffle (kerfufflette): whether warning labels in erotica shore up claims that homosexuality is an immoral state of being (that post is my second most viewed post ever)
- Whether epubs count as publishers for the purpose of industry awards like the RITAs
- Whether (snarky) negative reviews are appropriate and whether there are limits on how they should be written
None of these issues is trivial. Yes, things get emotional, sometimes painfully so, but it’s not just “feathers getting ruffled”: these debates go to the question what we are doing here in Romanceland, whether we are authors, reviewers, editors, readers, academics, bloggers, or all of the above. Emotions are not just feathers that sit on top of the skin, responding to random changes in the atmosphere. Our emotions tell us what we value, and what we value tells us who we are.
I honestly don’t know whether progress is made on these topics in Romanceland, or even what progress would look like. Perhaps we do all just glide back down to earth like the geese and carry on as if nothing happened, only to be blindsided by the very same issue rearing up again a year later (this question is the subject of another post). It probably depends. I do know that each of these kerfuffles generated a lot of intelligent, thoughtful, respectful, heated, angry, and illuminating discussion, and I know that I’m a smarter, more informed person because of it.
I like the word ‘kerfuffle’, and I’ll keep using it. But I’ll use my favored connotation: smart committed people with differences on topics of significance, working them out.
I don’t have anything useful to add, but I did think of a few more words to throw into the discussion. Sometimes this sort of event is called a “brouhaha.” I’m not sure whether that’s much better than “kerfuffle.” Another alternative, along the same lines, would be “stramash.” “Stramash” certainly doesn’t make me think of geese and feathers, but it might make me think of a pub brawl.
First of all, is that Mariam from Happy Days? You know, the mother? Who I thought I would never be as old as, and now AM?
Anyway, I like this post. I’ve never much liked the word kerfluffle, but I never really thought much about it either, except it’s the name of my pal’s cat. I do think it sort of demeans the smartness of our discussions, but then, taking issue with the word kerfluffle feels like its own kerfluffle. It’s a metakerfluffle.
Hey, welcome back!
Of course, another reason why the word has become more popular, particularly in the UK, is the folk band of the same name! http://www.kerfuffleonline.co.uk
Just looking at that picture of Dolores Umbridge made the back of my hand hurt like a quill was poking in it! She is the creepiest of the creepy and looked way more scary in my imagination than they captured in the movies, isn’t that always the case? I love learning the origins of words, a good book that is a fun/easy read on word origins and histories is The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, it’s one of my fave books of all time, fiction or non-fiction!
@ Laura Vivanco:
Stramash. I love it!
carolyn jean wrote:
Ok, you have just outed yourself as Not a Harry Potter Fan. That’s Hogwarts teacher and Ministry of Magic minion Dolores Umbridge, one of the most chillingly evil fictional characters to emerge in the last ten years.
Welcome to my world.
@ Kerfuffle:
I can’t “delete as spam” any folk musicians. I just can’t. Welcome aboard!
@ Lusty Reader:
Thanks for the visit and the rec!
Hey, I was directly involved in…counting…two of those and indirectly in another two! Cool! ::sigh::
I like what you’re saying here, though. Good point.
Sarah Frantz wrote:
I was trying to be good, so I didn’t even link!
I think it’s another interesting question who has the power to generate the kerfuffle, and whether there are some legitimate issues that get no play at all, regardless of who stumps for them.
Nice point. And there’s a difference b/t generate and cause, as well. I can say I caused two of the most recent, but didn’t (to my mind) generate them (well, I probably had a hand in generating one, if I were to be honest, but definitely not the other). Someone else generated that one, with me as cause. Fascinating topic. I still like your main point though. Terminology is great stuff, isn’t it?
“Perhaps we do all just glide back down to earth like the geese and carry on as if nothing happened, only to be blindsided by the very same issue rearing up again a year later (this question is the subject of another post).”
Yup. Which is why I have little or no respect for many of the participants in the discussion. People don’t *learn*. Nothing changes, nothing improves. And over and over again, all that happens is that people who care, or feel passionately about issues, drift away, feeling marginalised.
“I do know that each of these kerfuffles generated a lot of intelligent, thoughtful, respectful, heated, angry, and illuminating discussion”
I must have seen different discussions to you, then. Because I found most of the discussions depressingly trivialised, and focused on personalities. Yes, I am being harsh, but I’ve said on my blog, and I’m saying it here – the Romance community does not handle grown up issues in a grown up way. I don’t understand it because there is no shortage of smart, educated, thinky people within it, but when you consider who the dominant bloggers and voices are, the really smart folks aren’t in charge. The people who speak to and on behalf of the Romance community are not on the whole, to me, great minds.
@ Ann Somerville:
I think, in general, that rational discourse doesn’t have the effect of changing minds, at least not right away. So while I agree that people have entrenched views which kerfuffles don’t alter, I see this everywhere.
I do see some of the ad hominem arguments here, and the assholes, but I see that everywhere else, too. The feminist blog blow up you have been discussing on your blog is a prime example.
And I do sometimes get frustrated when people think they are disagreeing with me who merely misunderstand me. We can’t disagree about Point X if you don’t grasp Point X.
But I still see a lot of good discussion. Just the discussion about gender and sexuality is something many people never bother to do in RL.
Perhaps my positive attitude has to do with (a) coming into Romanceland with incredibly low expectations of what romance readers are capable of, (b) not being personally invested in the outcome of most of the debates, and (c) being new around here. Watch for my post in 2011: “You’re all assholes and I can too.”
I agree it’s usually a trivializing word, but I don’t necessarily use it to connote fluff. To me, the essence of the internet kerfuffle is the predictability of it, and the degree to which it’s medium-specific. What you said here is a frequent example:
I’d call that the classic, organic internet kerfuffle that escalates without understanding. At the same time, I think your list includes some kerfuffles that arose from a deliberately provocative statement, and that’s a slightly different beast.
@ RfP:
You know, I agree that it is sometimes not used to trivialize. but I wanted to write a blog post on the word kerfuffle, and needed an angle.
That’s a great point about the origin of the kerfuffle — sometimes they do blow up as a result of misunderstandings (and I am as guilty as anyone of misunderstanding others), and sometimes they get started by Kerfufflonists (the arsonists of Romanceland). I think maybe a typology of kerfuffles is in order — if we had one, we could quickly diagnose them and provide the antidote! (I’m kidding — I often like them, for the reasons I stated in the post)