How are you doing this week?
Are you perchance feeling a little frobly-mobly?
This is my latest discovery, and as we are dealing with taking delight in the smallest of things, this certainly has made my week.
Frobly-mobly is the 18th century equivalent of ‘meh’. It means ‘indifferently well’, neither up nor down, not one thing nor another.
This marvelous discovery comes from the book Word Perfect by Susie Dent, purchased recently as a present for a book loving family member. I highly commend it to you, especially if you enjoy sharing nuggets of wisdom with other family members.
Frobly-mobly: I love this so much.
There are several reasons why this brings me such delight – a small thing I know, but this is the level that we have reached.
I have always loved words, as far back as I can remember. My most favourite and beloved teacher at school was my English teacher, and had I not set my heart on being a physiotherapist, I would have studied English and Psychology. Books have been a source of comfort, solace and escapism since I was a small child. If my nose was buried in a book, my family could carry on a conversation about me in the same room without my paying any heed, that engrossed was I.
I have recently rediscovered a long lost and – oh tragic self recrimination – long forgotten friend in Emily of New Moon. In the midst of Covid horribleness, revisiting again that fabulous world I so enjoyed as a young teenager has passed many a happy hour.
I love words and therefore the word frobly-mobly is an absolute delight. It is that kind of word that you can relish in rolling around in your mouth, almost chewing on as you articulate it.
Discovering the word frobly-mobly also brings great pleasure as it reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun. It may be that ‘meh’ is a modern word, used primarily amongst the younger generation. The word has made it into the Oxford English Dictionary and the Cambridge Dictionary, much to my amusement.
But the concept of meh is far from new.
And I think the reason that this brings some small degree of comfort and hope is that as humans, most of what we face, our predecessors have been through before. We have been here before, and we have somehow found a way through.
A few weeks back I was musing here about walking in the darkness. This requires going slowly, trusting what you know, and taking one step at a time when the way ahead is far from clear.
Frobly-mobly reminds me to trust what we know.
We know that human beings are resilient. We know that generally as a human race, we can be kind, creative, self sacrificial and hard working. We have evidence to show that we have come back from terrible tragedy and disaster in the past. This is in no way to diminish the cost – think of the losses of two world wars, let alone the conflicts in between and the deaths world-wide from Covid-19.
But just as meh is not new, the concept has been around for centuries, so too what we face as humans – though new to us perhaps – is not new to the human race. In a different form maybe, but suffering, loss, dramatic change and restrictions to our way of living – we have been here before.
So this week, when someone asks you how you are and the answer is along the lines of indifferently well, try saying that you are feeling frobly-mobly. Apart from raising an eyebrow and being very pleasing to say, you will be standing in solidarity with generations before you who have experienced the same.
This too will pass. We will get through this.