Ah, those doses of flummox
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
The word “flummox” showed up in the newspaper again the other day, and I thought it was being used incorrectly, but apparently not. It was being used as a synonym for the word “perplexed,”
which is correct.
I had always thought a flummox was what your mother gave you when you didn’t feel very well. It usually didn’t taste all that good. “Here, take this flummox and lie down for a little while, dear,” Mom might say. “You’ll feel better before you know it.”
It turns out, though, that after all these years, I’ve been wrong. Your Mom wouldn’t have said, “here, dear, take this perplex and lie down for a while,” would she?
Flummox also means “baffle,” which is a word also applied to some of things I have purchased over the years and had to assemble. For example, if one is putting together one’s new barbecue, one may encounter the instruction, “Attach the baffle to the flummox.” Need I say more?
Another source of confusion has been the word “hautboys.” Ever since I first studied Shakespeare, and saw the stage directions “flourish, hautboys and trumpets,” I have assumed that hautboys (pronounced “hoe boys”) were young lads hired to stand around the royal court and do little chores, which might include flourishing, which is to make a bold or extravagant gesture intended to attract attention to oneself or another. Perhaps, somehow, a trumpet would be involved.
At times, I have thought it might be a good idea to bring back haut-boys, to run little errands and
so forth. Well, it will not be so.
First, hautboys aren’t boys at all, but oboes, I recently learned to my astonishment. The French, for some reason, called oboes hautboys, and it stuck. Also, a flourish is a musical fanfare.
I must say, I find all this most flummoxing.
