Good To Know: founder vs. flounder
For quite some time, I’d assumed that I simply didn’t understand these two words. I’ve seen the verb “to founder” in print, quite often where I expected “to flounder.” As such, I decided that flounder probably wasn’t proper English, but rather a perversion of the real word, “to founder.”
I even went so far as to inform people of my error in this matter. None of them thought (or knew) to correct me, so I preceded to think that I had solved the mystery.
It wasn’t until recently that I finally got around to investigating the difference, and was surprised by what I found.
First, both founder and flounder are real English verbs. And indeed they are used in roughly the same context, though they do mean different things.
This usage guide, from the American Heritage Book of English Usage, is perhaps the best and most simple explanation I can find:
People often confuse the verbs founder and flounder. Founder comes from a Latin word meaning “bottom” (as in foundation) and originally referred to knocking enemies down; people now use it also to mean “to fail utterly, collapse”: The business started well but foundered. Flounder means “to move clumsily, thrash about” and hence “to proceed in confusion.” Thus if John is foundering in Chemistry 1, he had better drop the course; if he is floundering, he may yet pull through.
Thus, I floundered with this distinction. But, by looking it up, I saved myself from foundering. And that’s good to know.
4 Responses to “Good To Know: founder vs. flounder”
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i hadn’t thought about this one in a while, but then i remembered my old comic book days and the obscure phrases. founder was one of those words they used when they ran out of words to say something was destroyed.
I will never accept that “floundering” is anything more than a perverse use of the word “foundering”. Pity the poor Flounder, maligned as some sort of sinking, thrashing creature unable to swim or float, doomed to a life of struggle. I have caught many flounder, and almost never by design. The awkward looking, but delicious tasting flounder is not easily caught, and to bring one home for dinner is indeed a pleasure, nearly equaling the satisfaction of catching one. These saltwater dwellers do anything but “founder” when hooked. There is absolutely no meaningful connection that can ever be made between the act of faltering, sputtering or failing and the tenacious and graceful movement of the flounder, either swimming free, or at the end of a fishing line.
There are possibly only 15 million flounder alive in the world. that is less than the population of New York City. Please don’t eat flounder or surely their species will founder…
“There is absolutely no meaningful connection that can ever be made between the act of faltering, sputtering or failing and the tenacious and graceful movement of the flounder..”
Yep, that’s because that’s not what fLounder means. That’s what founder means.
Flailing yes, failing no.
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