Awkward Moments

A blunder is a mistake, which can create an awkward moment. Tripping over your feet or swearing during a job interview are two obvious blunders. This can be a noun or verb: you can make or commit a blunder, and you can blunder your way through life — though that is not recommended by nine out of 10 guidance counselors.

The first meaning of botch wasn’t as bungling as the current meaning. As the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines it, botching in the 1300s meant: “To repair (a worn or damaged item, etc.); to mend; spec. to make clumsy, imperfect, or temporary repairs to; to patch up.” By the 1500s, the meaning has broadened to mean, “to carry out a task badly or incompetently.” Today, the patchy meaning is mostly forgotten, and this is a synonym for a goof or faux paus.

Bumble rhymes with stumble and has a related meaning: to bumble is to stumble around clumsily. A common word pairing, at least in the days of yore, was bumbling fool. We often say someone is bumbling around, bumbling about, or bumbling along. Klutzes are experts in bumbling.

This is a French term for a social blunder: sneezing loudly on a first date would be a serious faux pas.

A flub is another word for a blunder or gaffe. Like blunder, flub is also a verb: you could flub a marriage proposal by forgetting the other person’s name, and a baseball player could flub a fly ball by dropping it. The origin of this word is uncertain, but it is an American term. One of the earliest recorded uses is by author P.G. Wodehouse in 1926 and involves a tough day on the golf course: “The spectacle of a flubber flubbing ahead of us on the fairway inclines to make us flub as well.”

This borrowing from French has been found in English since at least 1909, the date of this example from the Pall Mall Gazette: “These two gentlemen, whose weather predictions are still listened to with some deference, have made a bad ‘gaffe’, to use a popular slang expression.” Based on that evidence, the term may be quite a bit older, since it always takes some time for spoken terms to make it into writing.

This word shares three letters with awkward as well as plenty of meaning: a gawky person is clumsy and usually overgrown. The word most often paired with gawky is probably teenager. Since teens are growing rapidly and going through puberty, they tend to be gawky: they’re just not used to their bodies. Similarly, a gawky, big-pawed puppy tends to stumble all over the place. Once the puppy grows into its skin, it’ll be a lot more coordinated.

This word is a little more serious than the rest these mostly lighthearted words for ungraceful words and actions. An incompetent doctor could misdiagnose a patient. An incompetent driver could cause a wreck. An incompetent astronaut could violate our treaties with the lizard people. (Note to self: Check on current status of space treaties and existence of lizard people).

This is one of the gentler insults in English. The OED definition shows how the word has shifted in meaning since it first popped up in English about 100 years ago: “Originally: an awkward, socially inept person; a fool. Now more usually: a clumsy person.” If you know someone who often drops things, trips over their own feet, and bumps into walls, you know a klutz. To be a klutz, you have to be awkward frequently, not just once in a while. The adjective form is klutzy.

To stumble is to trip. Parents often stumble over their children’s toys.