My mother in law says this all the time

[willowbee]

If my mother in law sees a person with untidy hair she says 'you look like a wiffling goffling' Can anybody tell me if this is a true saying or has anyone heard this saying before?

[heathfield]

'Whiffling' is to blow or puff, 'goffering' is pleats or ridges in a garment. Before the introduction of 'permanent waving', 'Goffering' was also a method of producing a wavy hair-do using a heated device rather like today's hair straighteners.
So your mum is probably just combining the two terms to come up with a phrase that's pretty descriptive!

[VS Prasad]

Etymology: frequentative of whiff (intransitive verb)
1 a of the wind : to blow unsteadily or in gusts b : VACILLATE
2 : to emit or produce a light whistling or puffing sound
transitive verb : to blow, disperse, emit, or expel with or as if with a whiff.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dic tionary&va=whiffling

Whiffling means toss about irregularly as the wind.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=w hiffling

Gaffling means to take as one's own.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=g affling

The wording directly refers to untidy hair of a person.
Indirectly, she expects the person with such a hair to
think or behave erratically.
http://www.allwords.com/query.php?SearchType=3 &Keyword=Whiffling&goquery=Find+it%21&Language =ENG

[willowbee]

thankyou for your advice. my mother in law always says GOFFLING not GAFFLING!