Wondrous Words Wednesday – Brouhaha

Posted August 31, 2022 by elzaread in Wondrous Words Wednesday / 20 Comments

Greetings you Guys! Welcome back to Wondrous Words Wednesday! No, we didn’t abandon this fun meme, we’ve just decided to make it monthly meme instead of a biweekly one. If this is your first time visiting – yay! Here’s what it’s all about:

All you need to do, is share any new (or new to you) words you came across this past month and share them with us. You are also welcome to share words you simply want to show off to us.

No rules apply here, just share any or all the lovely or new words you’ve encountered over the last month.

Tips and ideas:

  • Don’t go pull the Dictionary down from the shelf. Use words you came across in a book, a TV show, pamphlet, social media, doctor’s room, classroom – the possibilities are endless
  • If you want to share a story around your chosen word, you are welcome
  • If you want to link your chosen word up with a book or books, please do so
  • You are welcome to share photos or pictures that will describe your word just a bit better (who doesn’t love Pictionary)
  • Let’s stick to words that are recognized in the English Dictionary. You are welcome to use translations of your chosen word or a brief history if it derives from a different language, but your readers need to be able to find it in the English Dictionary
  • Please add your link to Mr Linky and pay a visit to the other word wizards – Linky remains open for the duration of the month

 

You are welcome to use my graphic or design your own!

Our word that we have chosen for today is a word that my Mommy sees around town a lot, but just with a different spelling. More on that a bit later.

I know our graphic depicts the definition of the word as something exciting and fun, but apparently brouhaha would rather refer to an uproar or disruption. For example when a big, noisy fight breaks out at school. Catfight is probably a better description.

As you know, we love to hop over to Merriam Webster to get their definition of our word as well. I love their “did you know” sections:

Did you know?

The English language borrowed brouhaha directly from French in the late 18th century, but its origins beyond that are uncertain—not quite the subject of noisy brouhaha but perhaps more modest debate. What’s less arguable is that brouhaha is fun to say, as are many of its synonyms, including hubbubwilliwawhullabaloobobbery, and kerfuffle. And many of these, also like brouhaha, tend to suggest a certain judgment that the reason for all the foofaraw is a bit silly, or at least not worth getting all worked up about. A dad joke, for example, might raise some brouhaha, even though it’s really no reason for an uproar to brew. Haha!

Those of you who visit us regularly, will also know that we love to match our word with a few books. The only aim is to try to use books that we don’t have to search for very hard. In other words, what springs to mind?

  1. Romeo & Juliet – If memory serves me right, it was a brouhaha between the families that set the whole story in motion
  2. Les Miserables – One too many brouhaha left everyone desolate and miserable
  3. Game of Thrones – Because of all the brouhahas, my Mommy never finished the series. Books or Adaptation
  4. The Book Thief – An unnecessary  brouhaha lead to the burning of books, causing an even bigger brouhaha

In the beginning of this post, we told you that we saw this word all across town, but with a completely different spelling. If we didn’t come across the word brouhaha in a recent book, we never would have known it was an actual word! Hop over to the next session to see what we mean.

If you want to take part in Wondrous Words, leave your link in the linky provided here:

Wordless Wednesday

We simply love joining up with Wordless Wednesday. From new words to no words, a perfect combination. Wordless Wednesday is hosted by Sandee @ Comedy Plus and it’s even more simple than Wondrous Words Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday (WW) is a visual blogosphere phenomenon. Wordless Wednesday is a simple blog post featuring a photo which conveys a message that speaks for itself without using words. One thing for sure is this is a fun and easy meme to do. So come and join us in Wordless Wednesday.

Here in our lovely little coastal town on the Southern Point of Africa, we have a craft beer brewery called:

Photo collage kindly borrowed from Tripadvisor

As far as I know, we’ve never had a brouhaha at Brewhaha. But I can tell you, their craft beer is worth having a brouhaha over. In the positive way!

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday!

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20 responses to “Wondrous Words Wednesday – Brouhaha

  1. What an absolutely delightful post for a fabulous word. And what a clever name for a pub! I’m familiar with the word and actually have used it now and then, along with kerfuffle. I’ll have to pay attention to my books and jot down new-to-me words…..

  2. Amazing, I just love your descriptions around the brouhaha in those books. And you were clearly not wrong in avoiding Game of Thrones (because of the hype or otherwise)!

  3. “There’s a new PANJANDRUM of honks down under Nelson’s pigeony statue..”

    PANJANDRUM – a person who has or claims to have a great deal of authority or influence:

    (I’m not too sure about the context in which the author used this word!)
    ….

    “The showoff adjective FULIGINOUS popped into my mind”

    FULIGINOUS – sooty; dusky.

    “QUIDDITIES of other porches along the street”

    QUIDDITIES – A distinctive feature; a peculiarity:

    All three words came from the same book :
    “Ruin: A Novel Of Fly Fishing In Bankruptcy’ by Leigh Seippel

    Brouhaha isn’t a word we tend to use too much, here in the UK, although it used to be quite popular with my grandparents generation. Nowadays we tend to use one of your other featured alternatives Kerfuffle!

    Great post and it was so good to have time to stop by and share my own words too. I hope that you are well 🙂

    • Yvonne!!!!

      Oh yea!! So great to have you pop in and take part in WWW! Without you, it wouldn’t be ongoing still. And I love the words that you’ve shared. Oh yes, I know the word kerfuffle.

      I hope you are doing well and that life is good. Can you believe we are entering the last quarter of the year….

      Have a great week ahead!

  4. I love the word brouhaha and all the synonyms you mentioned! I’m not shocked it has somewhat murky origins. It sounds like it’s someone’s made up word that caught on.

  5. I know this one, but of course, as I’m French.
    In modern French, we just use it for noise, like background noise of conversations at the…. brewhaha (hilarious name!
    So we wouldn’t use this word to speak about the conflicts between the 2 families in Romeo and Juliet.
    Another example of how the English modify the words they steal from the French, lol.

    French etymology dictionaries say the word appeared in French in 1548, and it was noise made by the devil to scare people: Brou, brou, brou, ha, ha, Brou, ha, ha !! Fascinating, I think

    • Hi there Emma!

      Oh how interesting is that! I’m Afrikaans and our language is nothing but a mixture between Dutch, German, French and English – so I can’t say anything….

      I also think a brouhaha sounds like a lot of noise though!

      Thanks for the visit and I wish you a great week ahead.

  6. Great post and so clever in how you linked everything together. Hopefully, there are no brouhaha’s in your future to cause disruption. Happy reading!

    • It’s so strange to learn knew words you have actually really never heard before and then realize there are people out there who actually use it quite often. Am I just born under a rock or what? LOL!! In my defense, English is my second language.

      Have a great weekend Jodie!

      elzaread recently posted: Wondrous Words Wednesday - Brouhaha