fantods - 12/26/02 01:45 PM
Quinion says:
Fantodds:
A word known mainly to Americans, it refers to a state of extreme nervousness or
FANTODS
A state of extreme nervousness or restlessness.
Many Americans will know this word, though it's rare in other parts of the
English-speaking world. It seems one can't have just the one fantod - they
always arrive in multiples. Modern writers may speak of somebody having
a case of the fantods, or hyperbolically the flaming fantods or the
swiveling fantods, descriptions of somebody in a state of extreme nervous
hysteria or unreasonable excitement (as in the Atlanta Journal in March
1999: "He is beside himself, in flaming fantods, screeching histrionics in the
direst of foreboding and doom").
The word is known in America from the nineteenth century: the first
recorded user was Charles Briggs in his two-volume book The
Adventures of Harry Franco in 1839: "You have got strong symptoms of
the fantods; your skin is so tight you can't shut your eyes without opening
your mouth". It was a favourite of Mark Twain, as here in Huckleberry
Finn: "These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to
take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the
fan-tods".
Where it comes from is mostly a mystery. Of the singular form, the
Chambers Dictionary says, "a fidgety, fussy person, especially a ship's
officer", which is intriguing but doesn't get us very far. Some etymological
works point to its presence in Dorset, Kentish and Lincolnshire dialects,
and suggest it probably arose from dialect fantique (which turns up in a
different spelling in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, to mean an
escapade: "'You're a amiably-disposed young man, Sir, I don't think,'
resumed Mr. Weller, in a tone of moral reproof, 'to go inwolving our
precious governor in all sorts o' fanteegs, wen he's made up his mind to go
through everythink for principle'"; Dickens is here faithfully recording the
London pronunciation of the period, which often turned vs into ws). It may
ultimately be from fantastic or fantasy.
By one of those oddities of transmission, having been taken to the US and
shifted sense, it then returned to Britain around 1900. For a couple of
decades at the beginning of the twentieth century it is found in works by
British authors, such as Rudyard Kipling, John Galsworthy, and E C
Bentley (in Trent's Last Case: "'John Masefield has written a very
remarkable play about it,' said Trent, 'and if it ever comes on again in
London, you should go and see it, if you like having the fan-tods'").
restlessness.
Fantodds:
A word known mainly to Americans, it refers to a state of extreme nervousness or
FANTODS
A state of extreme nervousness or restlessness.
Many Americans will know this word, though it's rare in other parts of the
English-speaking world. It seems one can't have just the one fantod - they
always arrive in multiples. Modern writers may speak of somebody having
a case of the fantods, or hyperbolically the flaming fantods or the
swiveling fantods, descriptions of somebody in a state of extreme nervous
hysteria or unreasonable excitement (as in the Atlanta Journal in March
1999: "He is beside himself, in flaming fantods, screeching histrionics in the
direst of foreboding and doom").
The word is known in America from the nineteenth century: the first
recorded user was Charles Briggs in his two-volume book The
Adventures of Harry Franco in 1839: "You have got strong symptoms of
the fantods; your skin is so tight you can't shut your eyes without opening
your mouth". It was a favourite of Mark Twain, as here in Huckleberry
Finn: "These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to
take to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the
fan-tods".
Where it comes from is mostly a mystery. Of the singular form, the
Chambers Dictionary says, "a fidgety, fussy person, especially a ship's
officer", which is intriguing but doesn't get us very far. Some etymological
works point to its presence in Dorset, Kentish and Lincolnshire dialects,
and suggest it probably arose from dialect fantique (which turns up in a
different spelling in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, to mean an
escapade: "'You're a amiably-disposed young man, Sir, I don't think,'
resumed Mr. Weller, in a tone of moral reproof, 'to go inwolving our
precious governor in all sorts o' fanteegs, wen he's made up his mind to go
through everythink for principle'"; Dickens is here faithfully recording the
London pronunciation of the period, which often turned vs into ws). It may
ultimately be from fantastic or fantasy.
By one of those oddities of transmission, having been taken to the US and
shifted sense, it then returned to Britain around 1900. For a couple of
decades at the beginning of the twentieth century it is found in works by
British authors, such as Rudyard Kipling, John Galsworthy, and E C
Bentley (in Trent's Last Case: "'John Masefield has written a very
remarkable play about it,' said Trent, 'and if it ever comes on again in
London, you should go and see it, if you like having the fan-tods'").
restlessness.