Let your fingers do the filliping

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It's like a treasure hunt, reading the local daily newspapers here in Doha. On any given day, you can find unusual turns of phrase, archaic or unfamiliar words, or unintended comedy in the stories penned by the ink-stained wretches who toil at their keyboards. Yesterday's Qatar Tribune, for example, had the following headline in one of its front page stories: "Qatarisation gets fillip at career fair". (Qatarisation is a program designed to bring more Qatari nationals into a workplace.)

Fillip? According to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, the word dates from 1519, and has several meanings. The first defines it as "a blow or gesture made by the sudden forcible straightening of a finger curled up against the thumb", an unlikely application in this scenario. The second definition provides insight into the headline - "something tending to arouse or excite as a stimulus" - and helpfully provides an example: "just the fillip my confidence needed".

Now instead of whistling a happy tune to fillip my confidence, I can fillip my fingers. But a fillip isn't quite the same as a whistle, is it, Slim?

Comments

Anonymous said…
"Filliping your fingers"? Isn't that hand signal alternative to the automobile horn and considered rude in polite society? Or is that why Filipinos (an acceptable spelling, BTW) always seemed so happy to me? Keep it up Don. These blogs divert, amuse and cause me to go off on unusal tangents when considering my comments. Hope you enjoy them.

Jim
20 November 2007 at 23:57
Don said…
Thanks, Jim.

I do enjoy the commentary, so please continue. Thanks for the encouragement, too.

Don
21 November 2007 at 01:22
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