Fahunst, Ferhunsed, Fehoonsed

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

You’re talking with Judy Giblin.

Judy, hello.

From Binghamton, New York.

Binghamton, New York. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Judy.

Thank you.

What’s up?

Hi, Marga.

What can we do for you?

If someone could possibly give me a hint as to what I consider to be a very Pennsylvania Dutch word.

It’s verhunst.

And I remember my great aunt using it.

She lived in Reading.

And I remember her using it.

It was a, she used it as a word for being confused or, you know, just not understanding what was going on.

So you have a history, a family history in the Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking area?

On my mother’s side, yes.

And what brought it to mind now, after all these years?

Because I still use it.

Oh, you do. Okay.

And so what you say is, how do you put it in a sentence?

Yeah, give us an example.

I don’t understand the situation that’s going on.

I’m Fahunst.

Fahunst.

Okay, and do you have any idea how to spell Fahunst?

I truly do not.

I never saw it written down.

I only ever heard it.

It does come from Pennsylvania Dutch, and it’s often spelled F-A-H-U-N-S-T, meaning teased or disoriented.

Fahunst means to tease or confuse somebody.

It’s really cool.

Well, it goes back to a German word that means to spoil or botch or bungle.

And we think it might go even farther back to the German word hund, which means hound or dog.

And it’s sort of like it went from scolding a dog or treating a dog badly to spoiling and bungling something and ultimately confusing somebody.

Oh, that’s really cool.

Yeah.

And the verb is also spelled F-E-R-H-O-O-N-S-E.

Verhunds.

But it’s a wonderful word.

It almost sounds Yiddish, doesn’t it?

It does.

Well, I think there’s a connection there.

Yeah, it’s a German connection for sure.

Yeah, like verklempt.

But the German is spelled differently.

It starts with a V, right?

Yeah.

V-E-R-H something.

H-U-N-Z-E-N.

Right.

Oh, all right.

Yeah.

How about that?

I like that a lot.

Yeah, keep that one up.

I wish my mother were still around.

I’d like to tell her, but I’m going to talk to my brothers when I get the chance, and I’m sure they’ve heard it, too, growing up.

Yeah, own that one.

So they’ll be interested in it as well.

Take care of that one.

Keep it close and keep using that one, all right?

Give it some life.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, thanks for sharing it.

Thank you for doing the research.

I appreciate it.

It’s a good one.

Our pleasure.

Call again sometime, all right?

We certainly will.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Jean.

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

For hunst.

I’m so for hunst.

There are some fairly decent glossaries of Plattdeutsch or Pennsylvania German out there if you want to nose around.

And you’ll be surprised how many of these words kind of click for you as just an English speaker because you can hear the echoes of the related English words.

It’s kind of nice.

Yeah.

And so many of those are just so handy.

Right.

I mean, can you describe being confused or frustrated any better than saying, I’m balanced?

Because the dialect of German spoken there isn’t the sophisticated language of philosophers.

Right.

It’s the sophisticated language of farmers.

Right.

And so it’s got a different perspective.

It’s got that vigor.

And words that are more shopworn and kind of carefully modified over a long period of use tend to be about home and family and farm and life and not about the great, great thinkers of the world and leaders in politics and that sort of thing.

Well, if a linguistic question has you for hunst, you know where to call 877-929-9673 or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.