[“Such Language!” Zippy, September 27, 2023. Click for a larger view.]
In today’s Zippy, Mr. Toad tells Claude Funston that th’ thingy has no name. But what does th’ toad know? It’s called a bread clip, among other things. My dad once repurposed one that gave us a happy surprise.
Merriam-Webster traces thingy (“something that is hard to classify or whose name is unknown or forgotten : thing, thingamajig”) to 1927. The OED has it as “originally and chiefly Scottish” for “a little thing. Also more generally: a thing (usually with some suggestion of small size).” Its first citation, from 1787: “In Scotlands familliar diccion evvery littel thing iz a thingy, annimate or inannimate.” The OED traces a colloquial meaning (“= thingummy”) to 1927: “Today the fairy hand of Judith burst the wood thingy that runs along under the sink.”
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One’s attention goes where it goes. I got so caught up in thingy that I read right past dingus. Merriam-Webster: “an often small article whose common name is unknown or forgotten : gadget, doodad,” with a first appearance in 1873. And a later American slang meaning: “a dim-witted, silly, or foolish person ➝ often used in a joking or friendly way.” M-W has the word coming from Dutch and German: “Dutch dinges, probably from German Dings, from genitive of Ding thing, from Old High German.”
And now I recall the hilarity that Ding an sich brought to my grad-school days.
The OED definition:
colloquial (chiefly North American and South African). A thing, esp. a gadget or contraption, or (less commonly) a person, whose name the speaker or writer does not know, cannot remember, or does not care to specify precisely; a ”thingummy.”Other meanings: “the penis,” “a silly or inept person.” The OED suggests multiple origins: “Partly a borrowing from Dutch. Probably also partly a borrowing from Afrikaans.” Green’s Dictionary of Slang takes the word further.
I would like to have seen a Dashiell Hammett citation in the OED. But M-W has it covered, with a citation from Mark McGurl:
In his [Dashiell Hammett’s] writings of the period from 1924 to 1952, “dingus” signifies, variously, a magician’s prop, a typewriter, a short story, a novel, and an elusive artifact, a black bird better known as the Maltese Falcon.Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)
comments: 7
I thought that the dingus was the stuff that dreams are made of.
I believe it still is. The black bird is no thingy.
So thingys are dingus but not all dingus are thingy?
Kevin, I got so caught up in thingy that I forgot all about dingus. So thanks for mentioning it. I’ve added something about it to the post.
Oops — I wrote that comment before I saw yours. I meant that the falcon will always be a dingus.
My own sense of the words: Maltese falcons aside, I’d think of a dingus as a gadget-like, mechanical thing. I’d think of a thingy as a small thing or part. So a hangnail, say, would be a thingy to me.
But a read clip can be both? Or is Mr. Toad correct? Sorry. I'm playing Devil's Advocate here.
I think we’re in really subjective territory here. If I didn’t have a name for it, I’d call it a bread thingy. But that might be because dingus isn’t really in my speaking vocabulary.
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