Faunching around, Donna from El Cajon, California’s family term for squirming fussily or impatiently, isn’t unique to them. The Dictionary of American Regional English records faunch by 1970 meaning to fret or show irritation or impatience. An older sense, attested by at least 1911, means to rant and rave and turns up especially with horses that are faunching at the bit, pawing, or champing in frustration. Her family’s toddler-at-a-haircut sense fits neatly with that regional history. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Faunching Around” Means Squirming with Restless Impatience”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello.
Hiya, who’s this?
This is Donna from El Cajon, California.
Great. Well, what’s on your mind today, Donna?
One day you talked about family words, and it brought to mind a family word that we use that I’ve never heard anyone use or have seen in print anywhere. And the word is faunch.
How are you spelling that?
Well, that was what I thought was funny was my sister and I discussed this, and both of us decided it would be spelled F-A-U-N-C-H. Not ever seeing it in print, but we both agreed that that’s how you would spell it.
Huh.
And what does it mean?
It means kind of a restless feeling. It means like you couldn’t, you were bored and restless. You couldn’t figure out what to do with yourself, so you just faunched around.
Faunched around, like you had a bad case of the Phantods.
I’ve never heard that word before.
I heard that one in the South. I got a bad case of the fantaids. I can’t stop moving.
But it sounds like faunches must be the same thing.
Yeah, it sounds like it, yeah. Maybe you were trying to, like, give a kid a haircut, and he would wiggle around, and you’d say, quit faunching around.
Okay, I can see that. I can see how that would work.
All right, well, let’s just reassure you, Dana, you are not alone. This word is pretty well established in the dialect of some communities in the United States.
Really?
Yeah, it’s not just your word. And the use that you put it to is remarkably close to the use that I find in a variety of dictionaries. And one of them, the Dictionary of American Regional English, has it back as far as 1970, with a little footnote for you. And I’ll get to that footnote in a second. And it says it means to fret, to show irritation, or impatience. And that is remarkably close to the definition that you gave us, don’t you think?
Yeah, it sounds like it.
But did you say 1970 or 1917?
70, 7-0.
Yeah, because I got it for my mom, and she was born in 1910.
Well, that’s where my footnote comes in.
Okay.
And I’ve added this footnote myself. It comes from an older meaning of the word faunch, which goes back to at least 1911. And that definition is something like to rant and rave. And it’s particularly in the literature that I’ve seen associated with horses. So if a horse is impatient and it’s kind of champing at the bit or pawing at the ground, it might be said to be faunching at the bit or faunching around.
Oh, wow.
And in humans, the equivalent is to rant and rave and kind of rage and kind of make big wild gestures and anger and stomp around and stuff.
That’s really cool.
Yeah, so the new meaning comes out of the old. As always in English, the old gives birth to the new. And it sounds like you’ve got a little bit of the case of the new there.
Yeah, that’s a really cool explanation.
I like it.
I do too, so are you fontching to go now?
Well, Donna, make sure you hang on to that one because that’s good American English, alright?
Thank you.
Alright, bye-bye.
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