Fag

Fag (pronounced fag)

(1) Something hanging loose, a flap (mostly archaic except in US technical use in the industrial production of textiles where, in the process of quality inspections, a fag is a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric).

(2) Slang for a boring or wearisome task (archaic).

(3) The worst part or end of a thing (mostly UK, now archaic).

(4) Offensive slang for a contemptible or dislikeable person (archaic).

(5) Offensive slang for a homosexual male, applied most often to an obvious, (especially effeminate) or “unusual” one (now regarded generally as especially disparaging and contemptuous although within certain LGBTQQIAAOP communities it can be neutral or even endearing (a la the notorious “N-word” when used between African-Americans).

(6) To tire or weary by labor; to be exhausted (usually in the phrase “fagged out”).

(7) A school student allocated to do menial chores for an older pupil (mostly in the English public school system but said to be extinct since the late 1990s although apparently still practiced in some Commonwealth countries with public (private) schools based on the old English model).

(8) Slang for a cigarette (now rare, especially in North America); the Cockney rhyming slang was “oily rag”.

(9) As “fag-end” (as in the stubbed-out, un-smoked end of a cigarette), a remnant of something once larger, longer etc, such as the frayed end of a length of cloth or rope.

(10) As “fag-end administration”, the last months of a government prior to an election.

1425–1475: Assumed to be a clipping of “fag end” (remnant; discarded off-cut), from the late Middle English fagge (flap; broken thread in cloth, loose end) of obscure origin), the later sense-development to the intransitive verb meaning “to droop, to tire, to make weary; drudgery” apparently based on the idea of “a drooping end” or “something limply hanging” dating from the 1520s (the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) suggests an alteration of the verb “flag” in the sense of “to droop or go limp”).  There may be some (remote) connection to the Dutch vaak (sleepiness) and the transitive sense of “to make (someone or something) fatigued or tire by labor” was first noted in 1826.  Those “fagged-out” (from fatiguing labor) were in the 1850s said to have been engaged in “faggery” and from the same era “brain-fag" described “mental fatigue”.  Apparently, although rare, “un-fagged” is a correct construction that may be used to describe the process of cutting the ties binding a bundle of faggots (sticks; kindling).  Functional forms (fag butt, fag lighter, fag grave (an ashtray) etc) are created as required. Fag is a noun and verb, fagging or fagged are verbs and faggish & fagged are adjectives; the noun plural is fags.   

A GIF of Lindsay Lohan enjoying a fag, The Canyons (2013).

The slang meaning “cigarette” dates only from 1888 and was derived from fag-end (applied to many things and attested since the 1610s), a cigarette butt thus one of many fag-ends but “fag” (and the plural “fags”) came much to be associated with cigarettes producing terms such as “packet of fags” and phrases like “back on the fags” (again taking up smoking after giving up for a while).  The use of the term to refer to cigarettes is still heard in parts of the English-speaking world but is almost unknown in the US where use is not advised because there, almost exclusively, “fag” (as a clipping of “faggot”) is a gay slur.  The specific use as “fag-end administration” (a government’s final year or months in office prior to an election) is used in a number of contexts but most interesting is when the period coincides with a change in leadership.  On the basis of the conventional political wisdom (things are more likely to get worse than they are to get better), if a new leader finds their “honeymoon” with the voters is reflected by polls suggesting a likely win in an election, they’re well advised to seize the moment, even if it means “going early” by a year or more.  That was what Anthony Eden (1897-1977; prime minister of the UK 1955-1957) did in 1955 (increasing his party’s majority) whereas John Gorton (1911-2002; prime-minister of Australia 1968-1971) in 1968 and Gordon Brown (b 1951; prime-minister of the UK 2007-2010) in 2008 made the mistake of waiting, things not working out so well.

Inhaling a known carcinogen is of course a bad idea and not recommended but, undeniably, Lindsay Lohan made smoking look sexy.

Faggery (or faggotry) was the system in English public schools in which the younger students acted as servants (there were sometimes other purposes) for the older.  It was part of public school environment Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; prime minister of the UK 1957-1963) said was designed primarily to teach pupils life was “inherently unfair”.  Still, he valued the process and described any chap who hadn't benefited from the experience as having “no background”.  The use in English public schools to describe a junior student who performs “certain duties” for a senior seems first to have been used in 1785 although the practice is documented from the seventeenth century while the schoolboy slang describing the institution’s roles respectively as “fagdom” & “fagmaster” dates from 1902.  In modern use, faggery (less so faggotry but like faggotness, faggotize & faggotism) is used as a gay slur.  The term “faggot voter” was a historic term in the UK & Ireland, used when there was a property qualification attached to the electoral franchise; a legal loophole, it described someone entitled to vote by virtue of holding some form of property title short of fee-simple (freehold), typically a subdivision.  The origin of the term was based on the idea of “faggot” in the sense of the sticks gathered together and bound to make a whole (ie one property with one title fragmented for electoral purposes while not diminishing the quality of the ultimate ownership).  The “loophole” began as an “unintended consequence” of changes to the rules of real property but wasn’t reformed until the late 1800s because so many land-owners and members of parliament made use of it to “stack their constituencies” with voters.

The Duce's contribution.

The Italian term fascismo (a fascist dictatorship; fascism) was from fascio (bundle of sticks) and ultimately from the Latin fasces (bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting).  Relics from Ancient Rome (left) confirm the fascio littorio was represented both with the head of the axe protruding from the centre of the bundled rods of the fasces and through a gape in the side (left) but in Fascist Italy (1922-1943), the official images (right) issued by the state used almost exclusively the latter arrangement.  Fascism was that rare thing in political science; genuinely it was new.

As a shortening of faggot, “fag” is documented as being applied as a term of disparagement to homosexual males from 1914, an invention of American English slang, though related to the earlier (1590s) contemptuous term for a woman, especially an old and unpleasant one (thus a re-purposing of “faggot” in the sense of “a bundle of sticks”, the idea being something awkward to carry, equating “worthless baggage” with “a worthless woman”).  More speculatively, there may be a link with the Yiddish פֿייגעלע‎ (feygele) (literally “little bird” but used (1) as a term of endearment for a loved one, especially a man's wife and (2) in a derogatory manner: a homosexual man).  There may also have been some connection with the English public school slang noun fag which even then carried the suggestion of catamite, from the Latin catamītus (boy kept as a sexual partner), from catamītus, from the Etruscan catmite, from the Ancient Greek Γανυμήδης (Ganumḗdēs) (Ganymede).  In Greek mythology, Ganymede was an attractive Trojan boy abducted by Zeus and taken to Mount Olympus to become his cup-bearer and lover (Ganymede endures as a doublet in that sense).  The term “faggot marriage” was not a synonym of “lavender marriage” (an arrangement in which a homosexual man and a lesbian for purposes of social or professional respectability) but a disparaging reference to gay marriage, an issue that as late as the 1990s the US Republican Party was confident would be a useful “wedge issue”; generational change shifted opinion.

In the same way the now notorious N-word has been re-claimed by certain sub-sets of people of color and is (in context), an acceptable use by or between them, “faggot”, although now regarded generally as especially disparaging and contemptuous, within sub-sets of LGBTQQIAAOP communities it can be neutral or even endearing.  Two inventive variations were “fag hag” (a heterosexual woman who socializes with homosexual men (1969)) and “fag stag” (a heterosexual man who socializes with homosexual men (circa 1995)).  The less common companion slang for men who have many lesbian friends was “dutch boy”, “lesbro” or “dyke tyke”.  Covering all bases, it transpires that those of both sexes (and certainly “any gender”) who associate with lesbian, gay and bisexual people are “fruit flies”.  The story that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an urban legend with no etymological or historical basis.

Portrait of Henry VIII (circa 1538), from the studio of Hans Holbein the Younger (circa 1497-1543), oil on panel, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK.  The original was part of the Whitehall Mural (depicting the Tudor dynasty) at the Palace of Whitehall, Westminster (lost in a fire in 1698) but there are many copies (the king encouraged the distribution of reproductions, the artist having rendered a most sympathetic portrait).

Burning at the stake sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (relying on the scriptural suggestion invoked as the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, although under the reign Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) parliament had passed The Buggery Act (1533) criminalizing “the detestable and abominable Vice of Buggery committed with Mankind or Beast” and a conviction could attract the death penalty, that was by being hanged rather than incineration.  As it was, death came to be thought so onerous a punishment for what was often a consensual act that prosecutions became rare and in the twentieth century, (Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) explained why cases so rarely reached the courts: “Prosecutors know convictions are difficult to obtain because half the jury wouldn’t believe such things happened and the other half habitually were doing it.”  While the inquisitorial and judicial organs of the Roman Catholic Church may over the centuries have burned at the stake a goodly number of homosexuals, that really was incidental to the process (sort of the “collateral damage” of the day), the sentence imposed usually for other offences (typically heresy).

Faggot was from the Middle English fagot, from the Middle French fagot (bundle of sticks), from the Medieval Latin and Italian fagotto and related to the Old Occitan fagot, the Italian fagotto & fangotto and the Spanish fajo (bundle, wad).  In Italian, a fagotto was (1) a bundle or sack, (2), (figuratively) a clumsy or awkward person (a klutz), or (3) in music, a bassoon and was probably from the Italian fagotto (diminutive of Vulgar Latin facus, from the Classical Latin fascis (bundle of wood), or perhaps the Ancient Greek φάκελος (phákelos) (bundle).  The senses relating to persons, though possibly originating as an extension of the sense "bundle of sticks", could have been reinforced by Yiddish פֿייגעלע‎ (feygele) (literally “little bird” but used (1) as a term of endearment for a loved one, especially a man's wife and (2) in a derogatory manner: a homosexual man).  In English, “fagot” was long the alternative spelling.

Lighting the spark.

Spencer Rascoff (b 1975; CEO of Match Group (Tinder's holding company)) at the Tinder Spark Week 2026 product conference.  Tinder is subject to constant product development and recent innovations include matching based on astrology and tastes in music.  Intriguingly, data-mining revealed Gen Z users (the demographic cohort sandwiched between Millennials & Alphas and roughly those born between 1997 and 2012) wanted IRL (in real life) dating and to this Tinder responded, in March 2026 adding a dedicated tab for users to discover and RSVP to local, “low-pressure” gatherings like trivia nights, pickleball, basket-weaving groups, ceramics classes, and beach tennis (one must be “Photo Verified” to select “Interested” and see other attendees).

There was a time when the most common use of “faggot” was to describe the bundle of sticks used as kindling (small pieces of wood, twigs or other finely-divided fibrous matter used to start a fire) and, when arranged in a pile, these pieces were “the kindling” (from the Middle English kyndelen, from the Old Norse kynda (to inflame), from the Proto-Germanic kundijaną.  Other than the literal use (fire-starting), the word could also be applied figuratively (in the sense of “to arouse or inspire passion, enthusiasm etc”), familiar in phrases such as “the book kindled her interest in the author's work”.  Kindling is however the second stage of the three-part process of fire-starting, tinder first used to light the kindling that then ignites the main fire.  Tinder was from the Middle English tinder, tunder, tender & tonder, from the Old English tynder, from the Proto-Germanic tundrą & tundrǭ (tinder) and related to the Saterland Frisian Tunder (tinder), the Dutch tonder (tinder), the German Zunder (tinder) and the Swedish tända (to light, to set on fire).  Launched in 2012, the Tinder app is an online dating and geosocial networking platform (best understood by the more evocative “hook-up site”).  The Tinder name was adopted because the original (Matchbox) was too similar to the existing match.com (a US dating site) and the idea was of “tinder” as the medium to “spark the fire”.  A genuine cultural phenomenon, Tinder has been highly successful and was the app that legitimized the now universal “swipe feature”.

There can also be figurative use of the literal sense, Ernest Bevin (1881–1951; UK foreign secretary 1945-1951) remarking of his part in the downfall of George Lansbury (1859–1940; leader of the UK Labour Party 1932-1935): “Lansbury has been going about dressed in saint’s martyrdom; I set fire to the faggots.”  Old Ernie Bevin was unsentimental but others had real affection for Lansbury, the historian Alan John Percivale "AJP" Taylor (1906–1990) reflecting on his place in the place in the pantheon by calling him: “The most loveable figure in modern politics” and Harold Laski (1893–1950; LSE (London School of Economics) professor of economics 1926-1950 and chairman of the UK Labour Party 1945-1946) was realistic but generous, summing up Lansbury by saying: “Not a very clear head but with a heart that reached beyond the stars.”.  Ernie Bevin, a most practical politician, had little patience for Laski.  When once the academic economist asked Bevin: “Is there anything more I can do for you?”, he received the tart retort: “Yes. Keep quiet.”  That view was shared by Clement Attlee (1883–1967; prime minister of the UK 1945-1951) who often had cause to be annoyed by Laski giving interviews and issuing public statements contradicting official government policy.  After Laski in August 1945 made a series of embarrassing public remarks regarding potential socialist revolutions (in countries where the government wouldn't welcome such things), Attlee sent a famously blunt letter: “You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government... I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.”  Unlike his predecessor in 10 Downing Street (Winston Churchill), Attlee used as few words as possible but few failed to understand his meaning.  Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) first saw Attlee at the Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945) and thought him unimpressive, remarking: “Mr Attlee does not look like a man hungry for power” but his mild-mannered countenance was deceptive; in office he proved quite ruthless.

Winds of change: Left: Winston Churchill, left, Harry S Truman (1884–1972; POTUS 1945-1953, centre) and comrade Stalin, right) and Right:, Clement Attlee, left, Harry S Truman, centre and comrade Stalin, right, Potsdam Conference, July & August 1945.  Standing behind the heads of government are (left to right), Fleet Admiral William Leahy (1875–1959; Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief (POTUS) 1942-1945, Ernest Bevin, James Byrnes (1882–1972; US Secretary of State 1945–1947) and comrade Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986; Soviet foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956).  Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) valued Admiral Leahy’s advice on military and political matters but didn’t rely on his views on physics.  Famously, the admiral’s view of the Manhattan Project (developing the first nuclear weapons) was it would “…be a failure and I say that as an explosives expert”.  He was of course proved wrong but his reputation didn’t suffer.

Held in Brandenburg's Cecilienhof Palace in what would soon become the GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany, 1949-1990)), was the last of the three (following Tehran, 28 November-1 December 1943 & Yalta, 4-11 February 1945) World War II (1939-1945) meetings of the heads of government of the UK, US & USSR.  Truman and comrade Stalin attended for the duration while Churchill represented the UK until 24 July, leaving for London the following day to be present for the declaration the general election results.  He left without saying farewell to Truman and Stalin because he expected to be re-elected and return within days.  Instead, in a landslide, the Conservatives were defeated and, on 28 July, the Labour Party’s prime minister Attlee flew to Potsdam for the conference’s resumption.  The defeat provoked a variety of reactions within the Soviet delegation.  Comrade Stalin, who had no particular objection to elections, believing “it mattered not who voted but rather who counted the votes”, was surprised, having assumed the Conservative Party would have “fixed” the result while Churchill’s personal physician noted in his diary the comment of one female Soviet soldier who, on hearing the news, said she expected Mr Attlee would “…now have Mr Churchill shot”.  On 29 July, leaving Chequers (the prime minister’s Buckinghamshire country house) for what he assumed would be the last time, Churchill signed “finis” in the visitors’ book but was too pessimistic, returning to office in 1951 and staying (despite a severe stroke in 1953), until 1955, resisting the efforts by many of his colleagues to “prise him out”. 

A sincere form of flattery: North American F-86 Sabre (first flown October 1947, left) and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (first flown December 1947, right).

A well-crafted amalgam of technology stolen from the West (the airframe construction techniques from the US, the jet-engine a blatant copy of the British Rolls-Royce Nene and the aerodynamics from German research during World War II), the USSR’s Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 was a short-range interceptor, the appearance of which in the skies of the Korean War (1950-1953) theatre was such a shock to the UN (United Nations) forces that the USAF (US Air Force) had to scramble to assemble squadrons of North American F-86 Sabres for deployment.  Made in both the USSR and by licensed overseas constructors, the MiG-15 was produced in extraordinary numbers (some sources suggest as many as 17,700) and equipped not only Warsaw Pact (1955-1991, a “mutual-assistance” treaty between the states behind the Iron Curtain within Moscow’s sphere of influence; it was formed in response to NATO) militaries, some three dozen air forces eventually using the type; it remained in front-line service well into the 1960s.  Simple, robust and economical to operate, they proved ideal as jet-trainers because the predictable characteristics made them forgiving in novice hands; in private ownership, many still fly.  Soviet consumer goods of the post-war years may have been of dubious quality and often in short supply (shoes for example were available in black or brown but brown was usually out-of-stock) but the MiGs were well-built and numerous.

The MiG-15’s NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization; the trans-Atlantic alliance formed in 1949 as a defensive system for Western Europe designed (in the phrase of General Lord (Hastings “Pug”) Ismay (1887–1965; secretary general of NATO 1952–1957): “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down”) reporting name was “Fagot”.  Officially, NATO reporting names have no linguistic or etymological significance, being chosen (1) with an initial letter indicating type (B=bomber; F=fighter; C=commercial & cargo; H=helicopter; M= miscellaneous) and (2) a one-syllable name for propeller aircraft and a two-syllable name for jets.  Fagot was just another reporting name picked from NATO’s list of the possible for allocation to fighters.

Fairytale of New York (1987) is a song by the Irish pop-band The Pogues, augmented for the occasion by the late Kirsty MacColl (1959-2000).  One stanza included the lines:

You're a bum

You're a punk

You're an old slut on junk

Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed

You scumbag, you maggot

You cheap lousy faggot

Happy Christmas your arse

I pray God it's our last

The offending (in the sense of “offensive”) line obviously was: “You cheap lousy faggot” and for many years, every Christmas, there was in England an almost ritualistic argument about whether it was appropriate to play the piece on radio, a matter of some interest because Fairytale of New York frequently was voted the nation’s most popular Christmas song, something displeasing many reverend and right reverend gentlemen although Lambeth Palace seems never to have commented on the squabble.  In the late 1980s, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) seemed unconcerned at the possibility of a gay slur being thought at least implied but found the anatomical slang offensive, asking that “arse” be replaced with “ass”, a liberal approach compared with the old BBC tradition of outright bans (a policy that endured long after Sir John Reith's (later Lord Reith, 1889–1971; BBC Director-General 1927-1938) era) but, in the 1990s, sensitivities shifted to gender and, in subsequent live performances, MacColl sometimes adjusted the lyrics further, singing "You're cheap and you're haggard".  Since then, broadcasts have varied in the version carried, the BBC even permitting all or some of “arse”, “slut” & “faggot” on certain outlets but not others.  There was also use of the old practice “bleeping out” (actually scrambling) “arse”, “slut” & “faggot” as required and even today it's said to be unpredictable just which version will be played.  It did seem one of the more improbable battlefields of the culture wars but was emblematic of the new censorship.  Although, in the context of the song, it was obvious “faggot” was being used in the old sense of meaning “someone worthless” rather than “a bit of a homosexual”, the objection was to the very word which many activists demand should be proscribed, the same fate suffered by “niggardly”, a word with an etymology as unrelated to the notorious “N-word” as the meaning.

Doodlebug

Doodlebug (pronounced dood-l-buhg)

(1) In entomology, the larva of an antlion (a group of some 2,000 species of insect in the neuropteran family Myrmeleontidae, the appellation “doodlebug” an allusion to the “doodle-like” marks they leave in the sand as tracks of their movement.

(2) In entomology (UK), a cockchafer (genus Melolontha).

(3) In entomology (US regional), a woodlouse.

(4) As “doodlebugger”, a dowser (divining rod) or similar device supposedly useful in locating underground water, hydrocarbons, minerals etc.  By extension, the word was applied to geophysicists or geologists undertaking field work (especially oil prospecting or mineral exploration); they were said to be doodlebugging.

(5) In World War II (1939-1945) UK slang, the German cruise missile the V1, (Fs-103), also known informally as the “flying bomb” or “buzz bomb”, the latter an allusion to the distinctive sound made by the craft’s pulse-jet power-plant.  The slang began among RAF (Royal Air Force) personnel and later spread to the general population.

(6) In US rural slang, as “doodlebug tractor”, a car or light truck converted into tractor used (usually for small-scale agriculture), first noted as a type during the Great Depression years of the 1930s.  During World War II, the improvisation continued because new tractors were in short supply because most production was allocated to the military. 

(7) Individual self-propelled train cars (obsolete).

(8) Any of various small, squat vehicles (as both nickname and official designation).

(9) In informal use, a term of endearment (now rare).

(10) In informal use, a slackard (an archaic form of slacker) or time-waster (now rare).

(11) In informal use, an idiot (as used casually rather than in its once codified sense in mental health).

(12) In informal use, someone who habitually draws (or doodles) objects.

1865-1870: A coining in US English, the construct being doodle + bug, the first known use as a US dialectal form (south of the Mason-Dixon Line) to describe certain beetles or larva.  Doodle dates from the early seventeenth century and was used to mean “a fool or simpleton”.  It was originally a dialectal form, from dudeldopp (simpleton) and influenced by dawdle (to spend time idly and unfruitfully; to waste time, pointlessly to linger, to move or walk lackadaisically; to “dilly-dally”), thus the later use of doodle to mean “a slackard (slacker) or time-waster”.  The German variants of the etymon included Dudeltopf, Dudentopf, Dudenkopf, Dude and Dödel (and there’s presumably some link with the German dudeln (to play the bagpipe)).  There is speculation the Americanism “dude” may have some connection and the now internationalized (and sometimes gender-neutral) “dude” has in recent decades become one of slang’s more productive and variable forms.  The song Yankee Doodle long pre-dates the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) but it was popularized in the era by being used as a marching song by British colonial troops, the intention being to poke fun at their rebellious opponents; that didn't work out well.  From this use was derived the verb of the early eighteenth century (to doodle), meaning “to swindle or to make a fool of”.  The predominant modern meaning (the drawings regarded usually as “small mindless sketches”) emerged in the 1930s either from this meaning or (as seems to have greater support), from the verb “to dawdle” which since the seventeenth century had been used to mean “wasting time; being lazy”.  In slang and idiomatic use, doodles uses are legion including “the penis” and any number of rhyming forms with meanings ranging from the very good to the very bad.  The hyphenated doodle-bug has appeared and Urban Dictionary has the usual array of alternative, user-generated meanings.  Doodlebug, doodlebugging & doodlebugger are nouns; the noun plural is doodlebugs.

A doodled Volkswagen “bug” on Drawn Inside.

Bug dates from 1615–1625, the original use being to describe insects, apparently as a variant of the earlier bugge (beetle), thought to be an alteration of the Middle English budde, from the Old English -budda (beetle) but etymologists are divided on whether the phrase “bug off” (please leave) is related to the undesired presence of insects or was of a distinct origin.  Bug, bugging & debug are nouns & verbs, bugged is a verb & adjective and buggy is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bugs.  Although “unbug” makes apparent sense (ie remove a bug, and thus synonymous with the modern “debug”), it doesn’t exist whereas forms such as the adjectives unbugged (not bugged) and unbuggable (not able to be bugged) are listed as standard.  The array of compound forms meaning “someone obsessed with an idea, hobby etc) produced things like “shutterbug” (amateur photographer) & firebug (arsonist) seems first to have emerged in the mid nineteenth century.  The development of this into “a craze or obsession” is thought rapidly to have accelerated in the years just before World War I (1914-1918), again based on the notion of “bitten by the bug” or “caught the bug”, thus the idea of being infected with an unusual enthusiasm for something.

The use to mean a demon, evil spirit, spectre or hobgoblin was first recorded in the mid-fourteenth century and was a clipping of the Middle English bugge (scarecrow, demon, hobgoblin) or uncertain origin although it may have come from the Middle Welsh bwg (ghost; goblin (and linked to the Welsh bwgwl (threat (and earlier “fear”) and the Middle Irish bocanách (supernatural being).  There’s also speculation it may have come from the scary tales told to children which included the idea of a bugge (beetle) at a gigantic scale.  That would have been a nightmarish thought and the idea remains fruitful to this day for artists and film-makers needing something frightening in the horror or SF (science fiction) genre.  The use in this sense is long obsolete although the related forms bugbear and bugaboo survive.  Dating from the 1570s, a bugbear was in folklore a kind of “large goblin”, used to inspire fear in children (both as a literary device & for purposes of parental control) and for adults it soon came to mean “a source of dread, resentment or irritation; in modern use it's an “ongoing problem”, a recurring obstacle or adversity or one’s pet peeve.  The obsolete form bugg dates from circa 1620 and was a reference to the troublesome bedbug, the construct a conflation of the middle English bugge (scarecrow, hobgoblin) and the Middle English budde (beetle).  The colloquial sense of “a microbe or germ” dates from 1919, the emergence linked to the misleadingly-named “Spanish influenza” pandemic.

A doodlebug (left) and his (or her) doodles in the sand (right).

That the word doodlebug has appeal is obvious because since the 1860s it has been re-purposed many time, often with the hint something “small but not cute”, that something understandable given the original creature so named (larva of an antlion) is not one of nature’s more charismatic creations.  Doodlebugs are squat little things which live mostly in loose sand where they create pit traps and genuinely are industrious creatures, their name earned not because they are idle time-wasters but because the tracks they leave in the sand are strikingly similar to the doodles people often wile away their time drawing.  The frankly unattractive ant leave their doodles behind because, as they percolate over the ground, their big butts drag behind them, leaving the erratic trails.  So compelling is the name, it has been applied to a number of other, similar insects.  Another use is attributive from the link with the seventeenth century notion of a doodle being “a simpleton or time-waster”, extended later to “an idiot” (the word used casually rather than as it once was codified in mental health); in the 1930s it came be used of those who incessantly sketch or draw stuff, the idea being they are squandering their time.  What they draw are called “doodles”, the source of the name for the artist.

Doodles on a rendering of Lindsay Lohan by Stable Diffusion.

The mid-twentieth century art (some of its practitioners claiming it was a science) of doodlebugging was practiced by doodlebuggers who used a method said to be not greatly different from the equally dubious technique of the water diviner.  All the evidence suggests there was a general scepticism of the claims that a bent rod waived about above the earth could be used to locate hydro-carbons and the use of “doodlebuging” to refer to the process was originally a slur but it became an affectionate name for those intrepid enough to trek into deserts seeking the “black gold” usuing more orthodox prospecting techniques.  In the 1940s when the “profession” was first described, any reliable means of detecting sub-surface oil deposits simply didn’t exist (other than drilling a hole in the ground to see if it was there) and the early doodlebuggers were scam merchants.  The science did however advance (greatly spurred on by the demands of wartime) and when geologists came to be able to apply the modern machinery of seismic mapping and actually had success, they too were called doodlebuggers and happily adopted the name.

Texaco Doodlebug fuel tanker, one of eight built in 1934-1935 during the industry's "streamliner" era.  It was a time when art deco's lovely lines appeared in many fields of design. 

In the early twentieth century, a doodlebug was a self-propelled rail car, used on rail lines which were short in length and subject only to light traffic.  These were autonomous vehicles, powered both by gasoline (petrol) (in the US, it was the the pre-diesel era) and electricity; they were an attractive alternative for operators, being much cheaper to run than the combination of large locomotives & carriage cars, eminently suited to routes with lower passenger numbers.  The concept may be compared with the smaller (often propeller or turbo-prop) aircraft used for shuttle services or on regional & feeder routes where demand be sufficient to make viable the use of larger airliners.  Although the doodlebugs carried relatively few passengers, their operating costs were correspondingly lower so the PCpM (passenger cost per mile) was at least comparable with the full-sized locomotives.  While it may be a myth, the story is that one rail employee described the small, stumpy rail car as looking like a “potato bug” and (as English informal terms tend to do) this morphed into the more appealing doodlebug.

Some assembly required: a doodlebug tractor with hydraulic pump-driven crane, the agglomeration dating from circa 1934.

Although the mechanical specification of each tended to vary as things broke and were replaced with whatever fell conveniently to hand or could be purchased cheaply, when discovered, it included a 1925 Chevrolet gasoline engine, Ford Model T firewall and steering, Ford Model A three-speed manual transmission, Ford Model TT (truck) rear end and AM General HMMWV rear wheels and tires.  The "mix & match" approach was typical of the genre and it's doubtful many were for long exactly alike.

A doodlebug could also be a DIY (do it yourself) tractor.  During the Great Depression of the 1930s, smaller-scale farmers (then more prevalent than today) in the US no longer had the capital (or access to loan-capital) to purchase plant and equipment on the same scale as in more prosperous times but needed still to make their land productive, a essential tool being the tractor, one of modernity's many devices which greatly had increased the efficiency of agriculture.  New tractors being thus for many being unattainable, necessity compelled farmers to turn to what was available and that was the stock of old cars and pickup trucks, now suddenly cheaper because the Depression had lowered demand for them as well.  With saws and welding kits, imaginative and inventive farmers would crop & chop and slice & dice until they had a vehicle which would do much of what a tractor could and according to the legends of the time, some actually out-performed the real thing because their custom design was optimized for a specific, intended purpose.  What made the modifications possible in the engineering sense was that it was a time when cars and pick-ups in the US always used a separate chassis; the bodies could be removed and it was possible still to drive the things and it was on these basic platforms the “doodlebug” tractors were fashioned.  They were known also as “scrambolas”, “Friday night specials” and “hacksaw tractors” but it was “doodlebug” which really caught on and so popular was the practice that kits were soon advertised in mail-order catalogues (the Amazon of the day and a long tradition in the rural US).  Not until the post-war years when economic conditions improved and production of machinery for civilian use resumed at full-scale did the informal industry of the doodlebug end.

1946 Brogan Doodlebug (right) with 1942 Pontiac Torpedo (left).  In the US, some passenger car production continued in the first quarter of 1942. 

Although now what’s most remembered about the US cars of the post-war era are the huge and extravagantly macropterous creations, there were more than two dozen manufacturers in the 1940s & 1950s offering “micro-cars”, aimed at (1) female drivers, (2) inner-city delivery services and (3) urban drivers who wanted something convenient to manoeuvre and park.  The market however proved unresponsive and as the population shift to the suburbs accelerated, women wanted station wagons (in many ways the emblematic socio-economic symbol of suburban American of the 1950s) and the delivery companies needed larger capacity.  As the Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1, 1938-2003) and a few other niche players would prove during that decade’s “import boom”, Americans would buy smaller cars, just not micro-cars which even in Europe, where they were for a time successful, the segment didn’t survive to see the end of the 1960s (although various factors would see later revivals).  But there was the Brogan Doodlebug, made by the B&B Specialty Company of Rossmoyne, Ohio and produced between 1946-1950 although that fewer than three dozen were sold hints at the level of demand at a time when Detroit’s mass-production lines were every day churning out thousands of “standard sized” cars.

1946 Brogan Doodlebug.

Somewhat optimistically (though etymologically defensible) described as a “roadster”, the advertising for the Doodlebug exclusively featured women drivers and it certainly was in some ways ideal for urban use (except perhaps when raining, snowing, in cold weather or the sun was harsh).  It used a three wheeled chassis with the single wheel at the front, articulated so the vehicle could turn within its own length making parking easy, the thing barely 96 inches (2,440 mm) in length & 40 inches (1,020 mm) wide; weighing only some 442 lbs (200 kg), it was light enough for two strong men to pick it up and move it (a characteristic with both advantages and drawbacks).  Powered by either a single or twin-cylinder rear-mounted engine (both rated at a heady 10 HP (horsepower ), no gearbox was deemed necessary, thus no tiresome gear levers or clutch pedals intruded to confuse women drivers.   B&B claimed a fuel consumption up to 70 mpg (84 mpg in Imperial gallons) with a cruising speed of 45-50 mph (70-80 km/h).  All this for US$400 and remarkably, it seems it wasn’t until 1950 (after some 30 doodlebugs had been built over four years) the cost-accountants looked at the project and concluded B&B was losing about US$100 on each one sold.  A price-rise was ruled out so production ended and although B&B released the Broganette (an improved three-wheeler with the single wheel at the rear (a configuration offering much better stability); it was no more successful and the company turned to golf carts and scooters; that proved more lucrative.  B&B later earned a footnote in the history of motorsport as one of the pioneer go-kart manufacturers.

Annotated schematic of the V-1 (left) and a British Military Intelligence drawing (dated 16 June 1944, 3 days after the first V-1 attacks on London (right). 

First deployed in 1944 the German Vergeltungswaffen eins (“retaliatory weapon 1” or “reprisal weapon 1” and eventually known as the V-1) was the world’s first cruise missile.  One of the rare machines to use a pulse-jet, it emitted such a distinctive sound that those at whom it was aimed nicknamed it the “buzz-bomb” although it attracted other names including “flying bomb” and “doodlebug”.  In Germany, before Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda 1933-1945) decided it was the V-1 (understood as “vengeance weapon 1”), the official military code name was Fi 103 (The Fi stood for Fieseler, the original builder of the airframe and most famous for their classic Storch (Stork), short take-off & landing (STOL) aircraft) but there were also the code-names Maikäfer (maybug) & Kirschkern (cherry stone).  While the Allied defenses against the V-1 did improve over time, it was only the destruction of the launch sites and the occupation of territory within launch range that ceased the attacks.  Until then, the V-1 remained a highly effective terror weapon but, like the V-2 and so much of the German armaments effort, bureaucratic empire-building and political intrigue compromised the efficiency of the project.

V-1 falling on London, 13 June, 1944, the location identifiable by the roofline of the city’s courts of law.  Not until 29 March, 1945 did the UK suffer its last V-1 strike, that final doodlebug falling to ground in Datchworth, Hertfordshire.

Shot from a Fleet-Street roof-top air-raid warning observation post, the image captures a V-1 in profile during the final seconds of its descent.  Accurate enough only for the target to be “London”, this one fell on a side road off Drury Lane, the warhead’s explosion damaging several buildings including the offices of The Daily Herald newspaper.  Long associated with the British Labour Party (and the labor movement more generally) The Daily Herald was published between 1912-1964 (always as a daily except during World War I (1914-1918) when there was only a weekly edition) and for a time in the 1930s it was the newspaper with the world’s highest audited circulation, peaking at over two million with a readership several times that number.  Despite a number of changes in ownership and editorial focus, it was for all its existence very much an organ of the labour movement and broadly supportive (though not uncritical) of the Labour Party, something that didn’t change in 1964 when it was re-launched as The Sun.  The real change came in 1969 when the by then ailing title was bought by Rupert Murdoch (b 1931), after which it (and the tabloid market) was never quite the same.  The pre-internet state of the UK’s once vibrant newspaper business was summarised by an anonymous advertising copywriter whose thoughts appeared in the book Newspaper Money by economists Fred Hirsch (1931–1978) and David Gordon (b 1942):

The Times is read by the people who run the country.

The Guardian is read by the people who would like to run the country.

The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.

The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who remember the country as it used to be.

The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country is still like that.

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the men who run the country.

The Daily Mirror (which itself once tried to run the country) is read by the people who think they run the country.

The Morning Star is read by the people who would like another country to run the country.

The Sun-well, Murdoch has found a gap in the market - the oldest gap in the world.