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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
Okay, I searched in three places on this site and was surprised not to find “flustrated.” So if it is listed somewhere and I failed to see it, it is not for lack of trying.
I was remembering a classmate of mine from high school who said this often, and apparently with no knowledge that it was not a real word (this was, ahem, in the late seventies and early eighties) even after my attempts at correcting him. It seems to be catching on, making it into the urban dictionary, etc. Most ghits are questions about the word (is this a real word) or speculation about its origins (everyone guesses, with likely correctness, that it combines flustered and frustrated).
I don’t think it is an eggcorn. I would say it is more likely an idiom blend. But it’s sort of a useful word, or so it seems, and I am guessing it will be mainstream and even “legitimate” in the not-so-distant future.
Feeling quite combobulated.
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“Flustrated” is a portmanteau, isn’t it? Not really an idiom blend (no idioms).
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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I tried to pin this one down a few years ago and found that the situation was actually surprisingly complex. I don’t remember all the details, but some sources (such as the OED) consider it a “jocular and vulgar” extension of “fluster,” some consider it a dialectal variant of “frustrated,” and some consider it a portmanteau, like Kem said. Those categories may not be mutually exclusive in this case.
Anyhow, it’s been around a long time—the first OED citation is from Richard Steele in The Spectator all the way back in 1712, and it shows up in Dickens and other writers of note.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2008-07-25 01:21:10)
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Yes, Kem… A portmanteau word…. Darn it. I even knew that but forgot it while writing my post. Lewis Carroll should have come up with flustrated, as he was pretty good at coining portmanteau words, but I guess maybe Dickens beat him to it.
While it may have started as a jocular extension of flustered, I think most people using it today are using it unironically and unjocularly.
Feeling quite combobulated.
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kem wrote:
“Flustrated” is a portmanteau, isn’t it? Not really an idiom blend (no idioms).
Portmanteaux are 1-wd blends. An “idiom” is the multiword analogue of a word, and idiom blends grade into 1-wd blends in a number of ways. One obvious one is how often it is simply a matter of the analyst’s choice what gets considered and presented. Dramastic is a portmanteau of drastic and dramatic, but make dramastic changes is an idiom blend of make dramatic changes and make drastic changes .
Idiom blends are rightly seen as phrasal portmanteaux—the categories blend into each other seamlessly (not to mention seemlily).
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-07-25 12:00:10)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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btw, having experienced repeated flustration, I was delighted to come across this one:
Don’t let yourself be tired or frustered
i got frustered last night and reinstalled DMX, and also reinstalled a few extensions. could an extension cause this?
www.fwzone.net/forum/go/?27716
I’ve been frustered and tried a few other books, but I always end up back at Alfred because that’s what’s worked best so far. ...
www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.p … /6196.html
if that means anything, but i’m not sure i was influenced by anything except the dwindling passion for killing those who fruster me! ...
www.voicesofunreason.com/fullThread$7621
(“frustered†790 ghits. “fruster me” just the one. I didn’t find any with “frusters” )
This one’s interesting in that it may be, besides/instead of a blend of “frustrate” with “fluster”, a back-formation from “frustration”, given that sometimes -ation functions as a unitary suffix rather than a combination of -ate-ion .
Another similar one:
[after being complimented and dropping a tool] Aw, David you got me all flastered!
“i am flastered with every event coming, first i never thought that my reports would be directly to maam leah’s email, i know! like i don’t need a rocket scientist to explain that,
greekcook.multiply.com/journal
Don’t get flastered by big shots who want to show off. Just keep your pace and don’t worry about em. Just remember for the future- don’t show off yourself, ...
bluelight.ru/vb/archive/index.php/t-1150.html
The first instance was clearly a blend of flustered with flattered, most others may have plastered or something else involved in them instead/as well.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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