All in a Wuzzle

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, how’s it going? This is Carl Feaster calling in from Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Hi, Carl. Welcome to the program. Woods Hole, there’s a famous oceanography center there, right?

Yeah, that’s right. It’s called the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Nice. What’s on your mind?

So I’m calling today about a piece of workplace jargon that originates here at Huey.

Oh, so you’re there. You work there?

Oh, yes. Yes, I’m an engineer here.

Oh, fantastic.

So it’s common in our field to be deploying sensors or robots or moorings using these big, thick underwater cables that are typically reinforced with like Kevlar and rubber.

So they typically have these cables have a memory, kind of like the old phone cords for handheld sets.

And when the cables are not handled properly and wrapped up properly, they get into be a bit of a mess.

All kind of naughty and unhappy and difficult to deal with.

And we call this a wuzzle.

So a cable can be wuzzled, it can be de-wuzzled if it’s coiled back up properly.

And I’m curious if this word is, you know, kind of comes from our industry or if it’s used elsewhere or where and really where it came from.

So W-U-Z-Z-L-E, is that right?

That’s correct.

A Wuzzle.

And you’ve never heard it outside of this particular environment?

No.

No, we haven’t.

And, you know, when we use this term, we have, like, you know, customers from out of town here.

You know, we can point to, you know, a Wuzzle and say, oh, can you, like, recoil that and hang it up?

And, you know, they’ll know what we mean, but then they’ll ask, like, oh, I’ve never heard that before.

Okay.

Wuzzle.

Wuzzle.

Oh, it sounds like a great pet name.

There are going to be a lot of kittens named Wuzzle here on out.

Right? Yeah.

And de-wuzzle, too.

I am completely stealing your word, if you don’t mind, because I have an Ethernet cord that is really, really, really long.

And it’s really frustrating.

I have a hard time rolling it up.

And it gets in a wuzzle.

Now I can call it a wuzzle.

I mean, when you use that word, do you use it kind of contemptuously or just kind of casually?

I would say it’s a good mix of both.

It’s very frustrating to deal with, especially with some of these longer cables that can be over 100 feet long.

Having to recoil them up can be tedious.

Yeah, same with an Ethernet cord.

But I bet it’s even more challenging in the work you do.

The word wuzzle goes back to at least the mid-19th century.

The verb to wuzzle means to jumble or to put in a state of confusion.

As far as I know, it seems to be limited in that sense to your field.

I mean, the one picture of a wuzzle I can find is a picture at Hooey’s website talking about wuzzles as kinked tangles that can break the lines or damage instruments, which sounds very bad.

But it seems like the kind of thing that should go well beyond your line of work.

And it did at one point, right?

Like to wuzzle meant to muddle up, especially like with alcohol, you know, to confuse someone’s brain and not necessarily a tangle of rope or wire.

I’m just surprised it hasn’t had more application because those things are so frustrating.

Well, now it will, Carl.

We’re going to get this word out there.

Yeah, it’s a fantastic word.

I hope it gets more use.

So thanks for the call.

I hope we were able to help you a little bit, give you some depth and dimension on it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks very much.

Really appreciate it.

Sure.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Are you in a wuzzle about something linguistic?

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