I’m a retired school librarian and every week we’d have The Word of the Week. The kids looked forward to it because they never knew if it would be Latin, French, Yiddish or what and I loved hearing them use the words (and their parents told me THEY loved learning new words, too!). One of the all-time favorites was “kvetch”, a Yiddish verb that means “to complain loudly and constantly”, as in “Stop kvetching that there’s nothing to eat and have an apple!” BTW, clear pronunciation is VERY important with this word! I think that my elementary students were erudite, had a certain je-ne-sai quoi, engaged in some profound quid pro quo and, in short, were never flibbertigibbits, although they did appreciate serendipity!

“Wagafritz”is my go-to word. My father taught me this word that he learned from reading the Sunday comics as child. Pogo – do you remember the comic strip Pogo? – or one of his cohorts would be exasperated or frustrated and exclaim “wagafritz”. I think this may be the perfect word. I use it all the time…