Where did the word fuss pot derive from ?
Anyone have any idea where or why the term 'fuss pot' comes from? My husband has this guy at work who is a wealth of information and he would like to answer this ! I think its a male ego thing!!!!!
thanks
Louise
Aunty Lou Wed 23/04/08 17:51
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A synonym for yor word/phrase is fussbudget and derives thusly: "From fuss + budget, from Middle English, from Old French bougette,diminutive of bouge (bag), from Latin bulga (bag). Ultimately from Indo-European root bhelgh- (to swell) that is also the source of bulge, bellows, billow, belly, and bolster." (Source:VisualThesaurus)
In addition the source indicates "...A synonym of this word is fusspot. Usually we dislike fusspots and fussbudgets but sometimes we wish there were fussbudgets among our elected leaders who cared enough to fuss about the budget of this country.
The word budget is a marvelous example of how the language goes around. French bougette (little bag) came to English, developed a new sense: budget (a financial estimate), and then went back to French in its new
avatar. Most living languages are mongrels and that's what makes them richer. Why fuss about keeping them "pure"?
Other sources, by the way, seem to indicate a New England area of the U.S. genesis for the words...
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Clanad, I have never encountered fussbudget anywhere in Britain except... in the Peanuts cartoon strip, where it was frequently applied to Lucy, as I recall.
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My limited experience here is exactly opposite jno... In fact when I saw the question I thought the poster must have meant fussbudget since fuss pot is so uncommon as to be nearly unheard of .... two nations seperated by a common language, huh?
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I've come across fussbudget in other literature - I'm not certain, but i think it's used once or twice in Enid Blyton's stories.
Fusspot is interesting because it was a word I frequently heard when I was youngster in Lincolnshire. I don't think i've heard it outside the East Midlands in fact.
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Yes saintjohnny - Fusspot was used when I was a child, growing up in Lincolsnhire, but a Cockney friend also uses it. It's said that a fusspot, was an Aboriginal utensil for catching the oil of emus as they were cooked. Perhaps that's connected to the esxpression of "flaffing about" - whittling, worrying, waving of arms or wings?
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Or faffing about! Never heard of flaffing, or was that a typo?
I'd never heard fussbudget, and I've lived in the Midlands, Channel Isles, Manchester and Cumbria
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Collins English Dictionary gives 'fusspot... also called (US) 'fuss-budget ' . So, as suspected, fuss-budget is American.
Neither Collins nor the Oxford English Dictionary deigns to explain the 'pot' part. The OED does give,inter alia, 'an important person' and 'a large sum of money; the betting pool in poker' . An important person might fuss and gamblers might fuss over the pool but a clue may be in the American version. It has a pleasing domesticity about it, a homely quality.The American fuss-budget must be fussing over expenditure or finances. In the English kitchen, such a person might fuss over the cooking pot, perhaps forgetting, in that fussing, that a watched pot never boils, the fusspot !. :)
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