The International Variations Of Faff: What Do You Call It?

Last week’s Weekly Word newsletter was about ‘faff’. Here in the UK, we are very familiar with faff – but what is it called elsewhere in the world? Take a read, see if you recognise its symptoms, and offer up your versions of it.

Faff Optimisation

Is there such a thing as a group ride that doesn’t start with faff? Apparently outside the British-English speaking world, there might be. My in-depth research* suggests that outside of British English ‘Faff’ is not common parlance. Which led me to consider, what is faff? How can it be defined or distinguished from other types of pre-ride activity?

It is not pottering. Pottering conveys unstructured, perhaps leisurely, achievement or completion of activities. You can potter around doing housework with the radio on, or potter in the garden, plucking a weed here, pruning a branch there. Pottering conveys a leisurely pace of no particular agenda, just a general air of doing-ness.

Faff is not the same as mucking around (or its more crass f-equivalent). Mucking around is unproductive, perhaps deliberately so. Faff is a precursor to a goal, but inadvertent.

Neither is faffing the same as getting ready You can get ready for an expedition – tick off lists, make sure items are packed. It’s methodical. Faffing is not methodical.

Faffing is surely the antithesis of all the above: it is not leisurely, it is under pressure; it is inefficient. It is not deliberately unproductive or obstructive, however, it generally manages to be both. It is inadvertent yet inevitable.

Faff is not confined to group rides. There can be faff before a solo ride, but faff multiplies exponentially in the face of additional participants. Would life be improved without faff? Perhaps – although to eliminate it entirely might tip us into the realm of organisation, robots, machines, race-tuned athletes. Would we want that? Is there something in faff that is beneficial? Is faff the product of a certain level of relaxation or laissez-faire? A trade-off worth making in the name of leisure. Or is it just eating into our leisure time? I suspect there is an optimum level for faff, perhaps we could plot a graph for illustrating the perfect faff zone of enjoyment and relaxation – tip past that point and we enter into frustration, delay and loss of fun.

However, those without language for faff, do they faff? Do they call it something else, or just miss faff completely, going straight to ride, emerging perfectly formed from their walk-in wardrobes or highly organised garages, ready to roll. Do we in the UK faff because we have a word for it? Or do we have a word for it because somehow it’s part of our cultural existence? I find it hard to believe that faff is a cultural island and doesn’t exist elsewhere. So if you are reading this outside of the British-English speaking world and you recognise the attributes of faff but not the word, what do you call it? Let me know.

Now I’m off to ride. I will attempt to achieve the optimum level of faff minimisation and fun maximisation.

*talking to my American husband

From our readers…

It’s somewhat reassuring to hear that even the Germans – known for their efficiency – aren’t immune to faff.

“Herumwurschteln”

We’ve got herumwurschteln in German. It’s also not too specific, the direct translation would be ‘sausaging around’ with a tint of Bavarian accent :-/

It does imply the use of inadequate means and contains, at least to my ears, a humoristic connotation.

It definitely does not make for a quick resolution of the task at hand, and the product will be clumsy.

Heiner

And how about another English option – possibly a regional variant?

“Pisswilly”

The word faff is obsolete and should be replaced by pisswilly, as in my wife’s cry of ‘Don’t pisswilly around!’ shouted at Bolton Wanderers players as they fail to do anything useful on the pitch. 

David

Add your faff variants to the comments section, and be sure to sign up to get your own copy of the newsletter. It’s totally free!

Hannah Dobson

Managing Editor

I came to Singletrack having decided there must be more to life than meetings. I like all bikes, but especially unusual ones. More than bikes, I like what bikes do. I think that they link people and places; that cycling creates a connection between us and our environment; bikes create communities; deliver freedom; bring joy; and improve fitness. They're environmentally friendly and create friendly environments. I try to write about all these things in the hope that others might discover the joy of bikes too.

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