faff (was: English notation)
| From: | Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, July 3, 2001, 5:30 |
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At 10:41 pm -0400 2/7/01, John Cowan wrote:
>And Rosta scripsit:
>
>> faff faf faf
>
>What is this "faff"? It is unknown to me and to m-w.com.
verb intransitive = "to fumble", "to dither".
Often, tho not invariable, used with _about_, e.g.
"Stop faffing, man!"
"He was faffing about all the time."
As And says, it's always, like "hassle", pronounced with [{] or [a]
according to dialect, never with RP [A] which one might've expected.
The verb is quite common in Britain, at least, and included in dictionaries
as colloquialism. It's origin is unknown.
Ray.
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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
[J.G. Hamann 1760]
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