flummadiddle

Source: Merriam-Webster.com.

Merriam-Webster, adapting to the modern era of online dictionaries, picks its Word of the Year based on the number of online lookups for that word over the course of the year. They have a “Trending now” sidebar that lists the current top five words being looked up at the moment.

I wasn’t aware of either of these facts until I read these three posts by Diamond Mike Watson. When I clicked through his links to learn more, I saw that “flummadiddle” was currently trending. Along with puppies. Then I thought, How apropos. I often write foolish and worthless things. I’ll write a blog post about the word. It will be totally meta.

And here you have it. It turns out the word also refers to a bread pudding favored by northeastern fisherman, a definition omitted by Merriam-Webster but offered up by Wikipedia.

That’s enough nonsense for one day.