[“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)
I thought that the dingus was the stuff that dreams are made of.
ReplyDeleteI believe it still is. The black bird is no thingy.
ReplyDeleteSo thingys are dingus but not all dingus are thingy?
ReplyDeleteKevin, 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.
ReplyDeleteOops — I wrote that comment before I saw yours. I meant that the falcon will always be a dingus.
ReplyDeleteMy 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDelete