What’s the Cafugelty with Defugalty?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Alice Sullivan in South Carolina, Aiken.

Hi, Alice. Welcome to the show.

I would like to know what the origin is of a word, and I cannot spell it, but the word is defuglty.

Defuglty.

Defuglty.

Tell us more about that.

I worked for the Department of Navy for 27 years, and frequently the sailors, in the beginning it was in a Navy school, and the sailors would come and ask, what’s the defugality, or the defugality is this and this. It was in place of, I think, the problem, what’s the problem.

At one point, I also was watching a TV show, and this woman was talking about her husband, and she said that her husband said something about the defugality.

But I can’t prove to my sister that it is really a word, but I think it is.

You think it is because you’ve heard people use it to mean the problem.

Right.

Well, that’s what I tell my sister.

Okay.

Yeah, but it’s hard to search for because how in the world do you spell defuglty?

I don’t know.

One time I was able to figure it out and my sister found it, but she still won’t admit that it’s a real word.

Defuglty.

Defuglty.

I think Martha’s got good news for you, Alice.

Yeah, it’s an intentional mispronunciation of the word difficulty.

Okay.

That was what the sailors were doing.

But I could see sailors mispronouncing things on purpose.

Sure, you got to pass the time some way, right?

Yeah, you know how difficulty is spelled, and there are lots of different spellings of this intentional mispronunciation, like D-E-F-U-G-A-L-T-Y or D-E-F-U-L-G-A-T-Y, defulgity.

There are lots of different versions of this.

But it’s just an example of wordplay.

You know, when you say something incorrectly and you do it on purpose or you do it on porpoise, right?

Yeah, on porpoise.

That’s a good one, too.

Just to make something mundane seem funny or maybe seem funnily important.

But I love it.

Well, what a coinkydink.

Yeah, that’s a good one, too.

Oh, neat.

The most extreme version we know of this is ca-fuglty with a C at the beginning.

C-fuglty.

Now that’s crazy.

What’s the ca-fuglty with defuglty?

Well, next time I run across a sailor, I’m going to have to punch him.

There we go.

But it’s in some slang dictionaries and dialect dictionaries.

The problem is you’ve got to go for those specialty dictionaries if you want to prove it exists.

And just tell your sister, if people use it and you understand it, it’s a word.

That’s what I told her, but she won’t listen to me.

She’s my baby sister.

Well, Alice, we’re happy to help you with your defuglety.

We’re happy to help you.

Thank you so much.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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