well fuck me gently with a chainsaw

[timepiececlock]

CNN guy: "...now more on this continental kerfluffle."

Did CNN just say "kerfluffle"?

Alliteratively?

Today is a weird day.

Comments

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

I heard them say "fen" once too.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

You're shitting me. fen as in the plural of fan?

[memlu.livejournal.com]

That's just beautiful.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I swear my brain stopped for a 1/3 of a second to process it about 4 times before it sank in. Not only did he saw kerfluffle, he used it alliteratively.

[herongale]

NPR has been using that term for about a year now. :)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

The mind. It boggles.

I wonder if...it got picked up from blogs...?

[herongale]

I seem to recall that William Safire even discussed the word in his New York Times column on language a while ago, but I don't really remember what he was saying about it.

Still.. I think kerfluffle is a word which has simply become fashionable over the past few years. I don't know if the bloggers are following or setting the trend, but "kerfluffle" is a word that is definitely growing in popularity these days.

I wish I was more of a linguist, I don't know enough to make this interesting for you. :)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I've never heard it anywhere except on the internet, and I've always heard it primarily on LJ, only somewhat on messageboards or forums. I associate it completely with LJ in my mind, like "friending" someone or "wank" in the sense of fandom_wank. To me, kerfluffle was something you typed or said to other LJ people you were talking to in real life, not something non-LJ people said in real life. And definitely NOT something that people on tv say.

Weird. Just... weird. My internet language is being co-opted by RL. Or RL is being co-opted by internet lingo.

[evemac.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure "kerfuffle" is the original word, and somehow online people (whether fandom or just bloggers in general) morphed that into "kerfluffle" and now both terms are used...

In any case, I know for a fact that Eddie Izzard used "kerfuffle" in one of his comedy shows back in the mid nineties. "What on earth is this kerfuffle about?" Or something in that vein. I think it's in Unrepeatable. So, it's not as odd as you think.

Hearing "fen" on the news, however, would make me WTF to infinity. *g*