Since 1992
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By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Maffick
“Maffick” is a word you might hear on the BBC following the results of a hotly contested Premier football match, such as the recent Manchester City vs. Chelsea. It means to publicly celebrate in an excessively extravagant noisy manner.
The word comes from Mafeking, a town in the northern part of South Africa that was under siege by the Boers in the late 1800s and early 1900s during the second Boer war. The Boers were descendants of the Dutch settlers in South Africa and were attempting to gain independence from British rule. The British fought to maintain colonial rule in this part of South Africa, in part because of the discovery of gold deposits in the region. The siege meant the British were cut off from the outside by surrounding hostile troops and unable to travel or get supplies. When the British-occupied town was finally liberated after seven months, the sympathetic English at home staged boisterous celebrations in the streets at the news of the town’s relief.
One reason the siege received considerable attention was because Lord Edward Cecil, the son of the British prime minister, was in the besieged town. Lady Sarah Wilson, an aunt of Winston Churchill, was also there with her army officer husband. Col. Robert Baden-Powell, who later went on to found the Boy Scouts, was initially in charge at Mafeking and is said to have based the Boy Scouts on the youth corps he set up during the siege.
Maffick is a great word for Scrabble games and crossword puzzles and one of the few words to rhyme with “traffic.” The word has sadly been dropped from many modern dictionaries and most modern usage, leaving us very little cause to maffick.
