Flummoxen

Okay, I was looking for a joke, and found something else. We were in a place called ‘Flums’ today, and I was wondering, you know, if some farmer had working cows there, that would make them flummoxen, right? Or maybe that would only work if he was confused about having cows.

So I had to look at Wikipedia about oxen, and man, folks shoe oxen. And because apparently an ox have a tendency to fall over if you lift just one of their legs, the different cultures either hoist them up in the air or tie their legs together and flip them over. Which if I got to choose the etymology of a word, that would be the source of ‘flummoxed’: the feeling of weighing about a half a ton and being flipped over on your back so that someone can attach iron to your fingernails.

I suppose that’s where cow tipping comes from. Although you probably only tip them if the service was good.