Wednesday "Weird Word": Collywobbles

Collywobbles

Pronounced /ˈkɒlɪwɒb(ə)lz/ to “have collywobbles” is “to experience an upset stomach, a bellyache or the gripes.” It’s a silly-sounding word, so it makes sense that it is most often used for children’s minor ailments rather than in reference to negative adult dispositions. In books and newspapers it is almost exclusively used in the figurative sense, i.e., the nervous fluttering of the stomach.

The first known use in print is from 1823, in an edition of Francis Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

It is surmised that “collywobbles” may have originated from a combination of colic and wobble. Another theory says it was the result of folk etymology, in which uneducated people converted the medical term for cholera, cholera morbus, into something that made more sense to them

How might we use this word creatively? To me, it sounds a bit like a word for tangled-up cobwebs or walking around in a drunken state. Or something Old Mother Hubbard may have served her children for dinner. Or even a job not particularly well-done (Kids, come scrape these collywobbles off the dishes!).

It could make a super-hero comic sound…well, comical: In spite of his collywobbles, Iron-Man faced the much larger foe bravely. Or… “”I’ve got the collywobbles again!” moaned Spider-Man, looking to Mary-Jane for encouragement.”

I have to admit that I’ve experienced “the collywobbles,” as I’ve chosen to refer to them.. I had them in first grade. Being my first school experience, it seemed quite intimidating. The rows of chairs, the big chalkboard, the high ceilings, a nice but unfamiliar woman to spend my day with rather than my understanding mommy. My six-year-old anxiety resulted in nausea followed by expelled collywobbles a few times.

I also had the collywobbles when I was in college and found out I’d somehow missed the minor detail of a final project being due in my Children’s Literature class, on top of having to write an essay on a novel I hadn’t finished reading. The Lit instructor was willing to accept my project the next day. But I had a collywobbling amount of work to do on top of it! That was the time I was up for 38 hours straight and downed a pot of coffee—giving me not just the collywobbles but coffeewobbles as well. But it kept me awake. And I got A’s in both classes.

Sometimes having the collywobbles can be motivating—just enough nervousness to push you to do something you know you’re supposed to do, but not enough to cause you to pass out. They can serve a purpose.

There are those, however, I would rather didn’t have the collywobbles: my hair stylist…my tattoo artist (I’d like Winnie the Pooh not to resemble a mushroom with legs)…my taxi driver…or my surgeon!

Of course, we must acknowledge that the griping sort of collywobbles may sometimes occur—synonymous with getting up “on the wrong side of the bed,” being a “negative Nelly (or Nancy),” or more recently, getting one’s “panties in a wad (or twist).” I would offer that if you wake up with that brand of collywobbles, it is best to pray hard before opening one’s mouth, lest your collywobbles spill out. Nobody wants to walk into a collywobble-infested environment. It can be very toxic.

It seems that the best rule of thumb would be to handle collywobbles with as much positivity and glass-half-full mentality as one can muster. Determine that with God on your side, you can face the world victoriously—your collywobbles may wobble, but they won’t knock you down.

[credit to World Wide Words for background information]