No One Utters Fopdoodle with Their Dignity Intact
English Is a Circus: 109 Words too Goofy for the Machines, Helpfully Compiled with the Aid of the Machines
Years ago I collected a long list in Apple Notes of words that sound delightfully comic just to read and say, terms like bumfodder, kerplunk, and pumpernickel. Sad news: I lost the list! I remember texting it to a friend and must have cut and pasted it into the message because the original list vanished. I went looking for it and felt like that John Travolta gif from Pulp Fiction. I came back with bupkis.
Joyful Noise
Some words are just goofy. Maybe they’re packed with plosives that give them pops in the mouth and propulsion on the tongue. Some, like hullabaloo, sport long “oo” sounds and echoing consonants, which are inherently comical; no one utters fopdoodle with their dignity intact.
Some, like higgledy-piggledy, are playful and possess, like discombobulate, amusing rhythms and resonances. While some point to ideas and things as absurd as they sound, others take their comedy from a combination of sound and meaning. Callipygian sounds funny on its own but also means “nice butt”; tell that to an eighth-grade boy and watch his vocabulary improve overnight.
English is a circus if you know where to look for the red-striped tents and words on stilts. Bamboozle? Come on, it’s pure clownery. After recently reading a tweet with bamboozled hanging from the high wire atop such a list, I thought back to my glorious roster and had a stroke of inspiration: An LLM would be great at packing a Volkswagen with all those guys in funny face paint.
Recompiling the List
So, I fed Claude several examples of what I was looking for, and back it came with about 50 words. Gimme more, I said. And it did. More! I said. I ended up with around 200. I dragged that pile to ChatGPT, repeated the process, and nudged the total closer to 300.
Bonus? These are mostly words neither Claude nor Chat would ever use on their own. LLMs are too serious to use words that sound as if they’re dangling from the tip of Dr. Seuss’s pen ready to belly flop onto the page, and there’s something impishly jocose about having LLMs build a list of words they’d rarely ever employ.
Of course, three hundred items is too many for a newsletter. I whittled down the full list to what I considered the choicest examples. Some are funny for what they mean, but all are delightful or preposterous for how they sound and even look. I suppose some might not strike your ears and eyes as amusing as I find them; I apologize in advance for your lack of humor.
Herewith, 109 terms you can use to enliven your prose and, who knows, maybe even your entire life.
The List!
Absquatulate. To leave abruptly, sometimes with the silverware.
Argle-bargle. Copious, meaningless talk; what passes for programming on Fox News and MSNBC.
Bafflegab. Deliberately confusing jargon; the sound of a poststructural theorist talking.
Balderdash. Senseless talk, utter nonsense; Howard Lutnick explaining economics.
Ballyhoo. Extravagant publicity or fuss; whatever Kylie Jenner is up to now.
Bamboozled. Tricked or cheated; having voted.
Bloviate. To speak pompously at length; the standard mode of American political discourse.
Blunderbuss. A trombone with bullets.
Boondoggle. A wasteful or pointless project, often of bureaucratic origin. We’re only in the B’s, and I’ve already crossed a line with politics, haven’t I?
Borborygmus. The rumbling sound of intestinal gas. Somehow a real medical term.
Bumbershoot. An umbrella, naturally.
Bumbledom. Petty, fussy officialdom. Politics again.
Bumfuzzle. To confuse or perplex; what a life-insurance salesman does to you on the way to securing your signature.
Bumptious. Obnoxiously self-assertive and oblivious to others. A word that even sounds like it’s elbowing you in the ribs.
Bupkis. The premise of Seinfeld: absolutely nothing.
Caboodle. An entire lot of something, as in “the whole kit and …”
Callipygian. Possessing well-shaped buttocks. Try working it into date night.
Canoodle. To kiss and cuddle with amorous intent. Try that too.
Cattywampus. Crooked, askew, not quite right; most furniture assembled at home.
Clamjamfry. A rabble, a mob; originally Scottish, obviously.
Cockalorum. A self-important little man. Regrettably back to politics.
Cockamamie. Ridiculous or implausible; an adjective curiously absent from the U.S. federal budget.
Codswallop. Nonsense. Howard Lutnick strikes again.
Collywobbles. Stomach pain, queasiness; the feeling of reading the abovementioned federal budget.
Dingus. A thing whose name one can’t recall or doesn’t know; a serviceable name for pretty much anything, including some people, after 2 a.m.
Discombobulated. Confused and disconcerted. Fun to say, less fun to be.
Doodad. A dingus.
Doodlesack. A bagpipe, of course.
Doohickey. A doodad.
Doozy. Something outstanding or surprising: “Careful, that last step is a …”
Fizzle. To fail or die after a promising start, like all the novels I’ve tried writing.
Flabbergasted. Utterly astonished; economists listening to Howard Lutnick.
Flapdoodle. Nonsensical talk. You still here, Howard?
Flummery. Empty flattery; the rhetorical mode employed by tech journalists interviewing Sam Altman.
Flummox. To bewilder or confound; what Sam Altman does when answering journalists; alternatively, what IKEA instructions do after four beers.
Folderol. Trivial fuss about nothing; 90 percent of your email inbox.
Footle. To engage in the subspecies of fruitless activity popular across corporate America.
Fopdoodle. A fool. Note to self: enough with the Lutnick jokes.
Fustilugs. A ponderous, clumsy person; me, the night before Christmas and birthdays, assembling the children’s toys.
Gallimaufry. A confusing medley of doohickeys.
Gardyloo. A warning hollered before emptying slop from a window, rendered less useful after modern sanitation but awaiting revival to introduce tweet threads.
Gazump. To renege on a deal when new buyer offers more money. Legal in Australia, which—no connection, I’m told—was originally colonized by criminals.
Gizmo. A doohickey; a single item in a gallimaufry.
Glockenspiel. A percussion instrument with tuned metal bars, surprisingly underutilized in heavy metal music.
Gobbledygook. Pompous, unintelligible jargon; what passes between a poststructural theorist and Howard Lutnick (mea culpa) in a conversation.
Gongoozler. A person who idly gawks at canal boats. Possibly, more diverting than it sounds.
Haberdashery. A shop retailing men’s accessories, such as hats rarely worn at baseball games.
Higgledy-piggledy. In a confused, disordered jumble. Note to self: see the earlier reminder about Lutnick jokes.
Hobbledehoy. An awkward, gangly youth; me, at fourteen.
Hodgepodge. A confused mixture or jumble; the omnibus spending bill.
Hootenanny. An informal gathering in which folk music plays a prime role; how all business meetings would end if we were lucky.
Hornswoggle. To bamboozle. One of America’s greatest gifts to world English.
Hullabaloo. A great commotion or fuss; the state of my family getting ready for church every blessed Sunday morning.
Jalopy. My first car.
Jiggery-pokery. Deceitful trickery; what the used-car salesman resorts to when you’re ready to walk off the lot.
Katzenjammer. A hangover, a discordant clamor; scene at the local sports bar when your team loses, again.
Kerflooey. To go haywire; to break down suddenly; a state into which my jalopy sometimes flew.
Kerfuffle. A fuss or commotion; an event that often results in jail, a breakup, or a meeting with HR.
Kerplunk. With a heavy splashing or thudding sound; your hopes after jail, a breakup, or that meeting with HR.
Kibitzer. A spectator who offers unsolicited advice; your Uncle Frank.
Knickerbocker. Baggy breeches gathered at the knee.
Kumquat. A tiny, tart citrus fruit eaten whole. As fun to say as to eat.
Logorrhea. Excessive, uncontrollable talkativeness; the standard mode of communication on television talk shows and fandom podcasts.
Mugwump. A person who (prudently) stays aloof from party politics.
Mulligrubs. A state of depression or low spirits often experienced after not following the mugwump’s lead.
Nincompoop. A stupid or foolish person; a voter.
Ninnyhammer. A simpleton; also a voter.
Oojiboo. A gizmo.
Palaver. Prolonged, idle discussion. Yes, politics again.
Pandiculation. Stretching and yawning simultaneously. Odds are good you’re doing it right now.
Panjandrum. A pompous, self-important person of authority; synonym for Stephen Miller.
Pantaloons. Baggy trousers. An article of clothing I wish Stephen Miller would publicly don; it would improve the whole vibe.
Pettifogger. A petty, unscrupulous lawyer; a quibbler, but I repeat myself.
Piccalilli. A pungent relish of chopped pickled vegetables, sometimes served at hootenannies.
Piffle. Nonsense.
Poodlefaker. A man who cultivates feminine society for personal advancement.
Popinjay. A conceited, vain person; synonym for Andrew Tate.
Poppycock. Utter nonsense; Andrew Tate’s X feed.
Pumpernickel. A dense, dark German rye bread, good with piccalilli.
Quagmire. A boggy area of soft ground; a complex predicament; synonym for Iran.
Rattletrap. An automobile held together by zip ties and prayer; a jalopy.
Rigmarole. A lengthy, complicated, and tiresome procedure, such as filling out monthly expense reports.
Rinky-dink. Old-fashioned, small-time, or cheaply made—the parts from which a rattletrap is constructed.
Rumpus. Technically speaking, a ruckus.
Scuttlebutt. Top-shelf gossip.
Shemozzle. A muddle or chaotic situation; also Iran.
Shenanigans. Mischievous or deceitful tricks. Will never escape politics, will we?
Shindig. A hootenanny in which the music might be incidental but at which piccalilli might nonetheless be served.
Skedaddle. To absquatulate.
Smithereens. Tiny fragments or pieces; what politics blows my hopes for humanity to, if I dwell on it too much.
Snafu. A chaotic mess, military acronym for “Systems Normal, All F—ed Up”; the House appropriations process.
Snickerdoodle. An unserious cinnamon-sugar cookie.
Snickersnee. A large knife, also a knife fight. Has a word ever sounded less like the thing it is?
Snollygoster. A shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician. Note: I didn’t even intend to do that; it’s just what it means.
Sozzled. Drunk off your ass.
Spelunker. A person who explores such dark caves and caverns as the U.S. federal code.
Spondulicks. Money, cash; something Jerry Maguire would like to see.
Squeegee. A rubber-bladed oojiboo for wiping smooth surfaces.
Tatterdemalion. A person dressed in ragged clothing, commonly observed in Beverly Hills.
Thingamabob. An oojiboo.
Thingamajig. A thingamabob.
Throttlebottom. An ineffectual, incompetent officeholder. From a 1931 musical but, sadly, still applicable.
Troglodyte. A cave dweller; ergo, someone encountered while spelunking; a person regarded as deliberately ignorant (must not invoke the name of Howard Lut—).
Twaddle. Trivial, foolish speech or writing; more from the producers at Fox News and MSNBC.
Ukulele. A small, four-stringed Hawaiian guitar, currently underrated at hootenannies.
Waffle. To speak or write vaguely and indecisively, usually reversing yourself from one utterance to the next; the mode of speech favored by members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
Whatchamacallit. A thingamajig.
Widget. A small gadget or device, though it could be a dingus, doodad, doohickey, gizmo, oojiboo, thingamabob, thingamajig, or whatchamacallit, depending on need or application.
Zugzwang. A chess position where any move worsens your situation; roughly the position of American voters of either party.
Send in the Clowns!
Perhaps this entire list is frivolous. Great! Send in the clowns. Frivolity has its uses, especially in a world saturated in godawful seriousness. Words should do more than shuttle ideas from one dreary point to another; they should also surprise and delight us, maybe jounce around the mouth and mind. Language is a tool, of course, but it’s also a toy box. And it’s well stocked if you’re an English speaker.
So, please, make like Abbie Hoffman and steal this list. Better yet, add to it. Share your most comical words in the comments below. These 109 only scratch the surface.
Whatever you do, please try slipping these marvelous mouthfuls into your conversation and writing. It’s a do-unto-others thing; imagine how much better your day will go after receiving an email sprinkled with snafu, ninnyhammer, and argle-bargle.
You know you want to contribute to the circus! Label the next bureaucratic fiasco a boondoggle, the next public uproar a hullabaloo, the next talking-head show bloviator a fopdoodle. You’ll be rendering the entire species a service we can never fully repay.
And if you work for Anthropic, or OpenAI, or wherever, it’s time to up your training game.
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Missing 'kablooey' - a literal or figurative explosion, "Everything went kablooey".
I wonder how many of these words were invented. I recognize at least two from literary history:
#93, Snickersnee is clearly derived from Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem The Jabberwocky - "One, two, one two, and through and through, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack."
#71, Panjandrum is from the fabled reading test by Samuel Foote, which he wrote to challenge actor Charles Macklin, who boasted he could remember anything after reading it once - reportedly, Macklin failed the challenge:
'So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make a apple pie; and at the same time a great she bear, coming down the street, pops its head into the shop. What! No soap! So he died, and she, very imprudently married the Barber: and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.' - by Samuel Foote
I love this pufinstuf! The more English eccentric the word usage, the better, particularly when teamed with snark and a hint of irony a la Lemony Snicket. I pulled the word "trippet" out of the air, never thinking I'd heard of it before and did a search. Sure enough, it's a real word. "trippet is a mechanical component—specifically a cam, projection, or lever—designed to strike another part at regular intervals. My usage was "the trippets of human kindness." Thanks for making my day!