Wednesday, September 28, 2005

The Word of the Day for September 28 is:

duffer • \DUFF-er\ • noun

To hear the word click the following link:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?duffer01.wav=duffer


1 a : a peddler especially of cheap flashy articles b : something counterfeit or worthless*
2 : an incompetent, ineffectual, or clumsy person; especially : a mediocre golfer

Example sentence:Max had said he was just a duffer, but we knew otherwise when we saw his first drive land squarely on the green.

Did you know?Duffers have never really been straight shooters—on or off the golf course. The original duffers of the mid-18th century were shysters of the first order, merchants who palmed off trashy goods as if they were highly valuable (they often implied to unwary buyers that the goods had been smuggled and were very rare). Over time, the meaning of "duffer" was extended from a no-good peddler to anyone who was "no good," not just because the individual had low morals, but because he or she was incompetent or stupid. The term has been applied to hopelessly bad golfers since at least 1897.

Bookmark and Share
> posted by Trevor Hammack @ 10:38 AM   0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home