At a public event on March 20, President Bush answered a question from an audience member by allowing that his domestic surveillance program "had created quite a kerfuffle in the press"; the Associated Press report of the speech commented on the fact kerfuffle is not "an everyday word."

Kerfuffle was also featured in a number of news reports describing the reaction last month to Scientologist Isaac Hayes' quitting the Comedy Central hit South Park in response to what he termed its "inappropriate ridicule" of religion.

So what's the story behind the word kerfuffle? Spelled with a "k," it shares a birth year in English with the president (1946), and, at least until recently, it has been considered chiefly British. Kerfuffle is an alteration of the Scottish word carfuffle, which dates to the early 19th century as a noun and means "ruffle; agitation; disorder; flurry." As a verb it is much older, dating to the 17th century and means "to disorder; to disarrange; to ruffle." Carfuffle has Scottish ancestors in car (from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning "wrong, awkward") plus the verb fuffle, meaning "to become disheveled."

It is understandable that there were those who were surprised to hear the word coming from President Bush, as we still hear the word most often in British contexts. Here, for instance, is Hugh Grant's recounting of the first time he met Julia Roberts, as reported in the June 1999 issue of Vanity Fair:

"I was a very, very unemployed, pathetic actor at the time," Grant recalls. "I remember being so intimidated by the fact that she was in the room that I got myself in a sort of kerfuffle . . . and missed the chair when I sat down."

That's a kerfuffle.