{"id":6977,"date":"2025-06-13T04:14:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T04:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6977"},"modified":"2025-06-13T04:17:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T04:17:44","slug":"word-of-the-day-footle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/06\/13\/word-of-the-day-footle\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Footle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is footle<\/em>. Now, I have to admit right off that until I looked at the Words Coach website, I had never ever heard or seen the word footle<\/em>; it came as quite a surprise. Mirriam-Webster says that this unusual word \u201cwill be more familiar to speakers of British English than it is to speakers of American English\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/footle<\/a>). The word is, apparently, pronounced \/ \u02c8f\u028at l \/, and it means \u201cto act or talk in a foolish or silly way\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/footle<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M-W continues its explanation of the word by saying, \u201cIts likely source is the seldom-used footer<\/em>, meaning \u2018to waste time.\u2019 That word is etymologically connected with fouter<\/a><\/em> (also spelled foutra<\/em>), a word referring to something of little value or someone worthless or bungling. But the link between footle<\/em> and footer<\/em> is speculative. What we can say with confidence is that footle<\/em> is a verb of 19th century origin that\u2014along with the derivative adjective footling<\/a><\/em> (as in \u2018a footling amateur\u2019)\u2014is still apt when discussing foolish or trifling people or things\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/footle<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etymonline.com\u2019s discussion of footle<\/em> is actually a bit more interesting. It says that the word appeared in English in \u201c1892, from dialectal footer<\/em> \u2018to trifle,\u2019 footy<\/em> \u2018mean, paltry\u2019 (1752), perhaps from French se foutre<\/em> \u2018to care nothing,\u2019 from Old French futer<\/em> \u2018to copulate with,\u2019 from Latin future<\/em> \u2018have sex with (a woman),\u2019 originally \u2018to strike, thrust\u2019 (which is perhaps from PIE root *bhau-<\/strong><\/a> \u2018to strike\u2019). But OED derives the English dialect words from foughty<\/em> (c. 1600), from Dutch vochtig<\/em> or Danish fugtig<\/em> \u2018damp, musty;\u2019 related to fog<\/strong><\/a> (n.)\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/footle<\/a>). I say it\u2019s more interesting because I\u2019m trying to figure out how the French went from \u201cto copulate with\u201d to \u201cto care nothing.\u201d Maybe it\u2019s because they\u2019re French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1920, according to On This Day, the \u201cUS Post Office says children cannot be sent by parcel post (after various instances)\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/june\/13<\/a>). Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1913, the USPS began \u201cparcel post,\u201d the mailing of packages: \u201cWhile private delivery companies flourished during the 19th century, the Parcel Post dramatically expanded the reach of mail-order companies to America\u2019s many rural communities, as well as the demand for their products. When the Post Office\u2019s Parcel Post officially began on January 1, 1913, the new service suddenly allowed millions of Americans great access to all kinds of goods and services\u201d (https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That very same month, \u201cone Ohio couple took advantage of the U.S. Postal Service\u2019s new parcel service to make a very special delivery: their infant son. The Beagues paid 15 cents for his stamps and an unknown amount to insure him for $50, then handed him over to the mailman, who dropped the boy off at his grandmother\u2019s house about a mile away\u201d (https:\/\/www.history.com\/articles\/mailing-children-post-office<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Nancy Pope, head curator of history at the National Postal Museum, there were \u201cabout seven instances of people mailing children between 1913 and 1915, beginning with the baby in Ohio. It wasn\u2019t common to mail your children, yet for long distances, it would\u2019ve been cheaper to buy the stamps to send a kid by Railway Mail than to buy her a ticket on a passenger train\u201d (ibid.). She also found that \u201cpeople who mailed their children weren\u2019t handing them over to a stranger. In rural areas, many families knew their mailman quite well. However, those two viral photos you might have seen online of postal workers carrying babies in their mailbags were staged photos, taken as a joke. A mailman might have brought a swaddled child who couldn\u2019t walk, but he wouldn\u2019t have let a diaper-wearing baby sit in a pile of people\u2019s mail\u201d (ibid.). In a couple of instances, six-year-old children were mailed, one from Florida to Virginia, again because was a lot cheaper to send them by mail than to buy a seat on a train for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to United States Postal Service historian Jenny Lynch, \u201c\u2019Mail carriers were trusted servants, and that goes to prove it\u2026. There are stories of rural carriers delivering babies and taking [care of the] sick. Even now, they\u2019ll save lives because they\u2019re sometimes the only persons that visit a remote household every day\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinally, on June 14, 1913, several newspapers including the Washington Post<\/em>, the New York Times<\/em>, and the Los Angeles Times<\/em> all ran stories stating the postmaster had officially decreed that children could no longer be sent through the mail. But while this announcement seems to have stemmed the trickle of tots traveling via post, Lynch says the story wasn\u2019t entirely accurate\u201d (ibid.). Actually, there were regulations against mailing children before 1920, but some of the more rural areas kept doing it anyway. That is, until June of 1920.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you look more into the details, the sending of children with mail carriers almost makes sense. It\u2019s just that initial statement, that the mailing of kids by parcel post was made illegal on such-and-such a date, makes you think that some people were footling amateurs when it came to parenting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is \u201cA staged photo of a U.S. postman carrying a baby boy along with his letters, circa 1900s. Credit: Vintage Images\/Getty Images\u201d (https:\/\/www.history.com\/articles\/mailing-children-post-office<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is footle. Now, I have to admit right off that until I looked at the Words Coach website, I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,795,284,225],"class_list":["post-6977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-footle","tag-linguistics","tag-mail","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6979,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions\/6979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}