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Dec 4, 2006

This week's theme
Desserts used metaphorically

This week's words
flummery
cakewalk
chocolate-box
ambrosia
cookie-cutter

“You have to fall in love with hanging around words.” ~John Ciardi
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The English language has countless terms about food that are used metaphorically but this week we are offering just desserts. Enjoy these cherry-picked words -- they are made from 100% natural letters -- no artificial colors, sweeteners, flavors, or preservatives. These are organic, fair-trade, and they have zero calories.

A note about the term for a reward or punishment that is deserved: "just deserts". It's from a little-known word, desert (deserving), from Old French deservir (to deserve). The reason we mistakenly believe it's "just desserts" is partly owing to the pronunciation:

dessert (di-ZUHRT), as in "fat-free dessert"
desert (DEZ-uhrt), as in "the Sahara"
desert (di-ZUHRT), as in "to desert the army"
desert (di-ZUHRT), as in "to receive just deserts"

On to today's word...

flummery

noun:
1. Any of various desserts made of flour, milk, eggs, etc.
2. Empty compliment; complete nonsense.

[From Welsh llymru, from llym (sour or sharp). Originally, it was a kind of porridge or pap, made by soaking oatmeal in water for a long time, until it has turned sour.
How did we get from Welsh llymru to English flummery? That's to do with how the Welsh "ll" sounds to others: variously as thl, chl, shl, fl, etc. In this case, it's fl. For the same reason the surname Lloyd is sometimes spelled as Floyd. Also see flummadiddle.]

"Fox Broadcasting Co. aired its highly advertised special 'Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?' NASA, viewers were told, faked the Apollo missions on a movie set. Such flummery should not warrant a response."
Michael Shermer; Fox's Flapdoodle; Scientific American (New York); Jun 2001.

See more usage examples of flummery in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

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