“What a kerfuffle!” has become a standard expression since the recent comedy show Little Britain.
Kerfuffle has come a long way, but the meaning is virtually unchanged for almost 500 years. As a word kerfuffle goes back to the 1500s when the delightfully sounding fuffle was used occasionally to mean treat badly or roughly. It first appears as the verb curfuffle –with clothes being curfuffled – or mixed up around someone’s neck – in around about 1600. Obviously this word was used more colloquially rather than in written form.
After this there seems to be little kerfuffle for many years until the 1800s when the word turns up as a noun curfullel in writing penned in Scotland. Here it has the current meaning of a fuss or commotion. But even in 1953, the word was considered to be from Scotland. A London literary magazine stated that the word cafuffle is still in general use in part of Scotland. As late as 1955 C.S. Lewis, the man who invented Narnia, wrote he “could put up with any amount of monotony far more patiently than even the smallest disturbance, bother, bustle, or what the Scotch call kerfuffle”.
This was the transition period. As of now kerfuffle was spelt with a K and its use was restricted to Great Britain.
