footer - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
footer, foother n A clumsy, bungling person; a task performed in a clumsy, bungling manner. Hence vb To work in a clumsy, bungling manner. Hence footer/footory/foutory n The work of such an individual. [< Old French foutre < Latin futuere ‘to copulate with’; snd fouter n 1 ‘a term, orig. of gross abuse or contempt, for a hateful, objectionable person’ 1714→]
Ulst.:
1860 Patterson Belfast Provincialisms 23 = to bungle; a bungler.
1920 Ervine Mrs Martin’s Man 74 What does she want with a man when she has two childer, an’ me with no childer at all but an ould footer of a man, spittin’ and cursin’ in the corner!
1923 Lutton Montiaghisms 22 foother = to do any work or business in a bungling, unskilful manner; a clumsy, awkward workman; an ill-done job.
1931 Anonymous Holiday 32 I’ve been called a foother for linking the kettle off the crane when it came to a boil and setting it with it stroop in the reek.
1958 Gregg Phonology 399 = a clumsy person.
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 92 = (1) a clumsy, ineffectual worker; (2) to work or handle in an ineffectual, lazy or absent-minded way: ‘footerin an workin an daein very little’; ‘footerin at this owl injin this oors’.
U.S.:
1930 Shoemaker 1300 Penn Words 22 foutory = flimsy, insignificant, contemptible.
