Episode #007, 20.11.2011: shenanigan

shenanigan, noun. Wiktionary gives three meanings:

1. Trickery, games; skulduggery. To "call", "claim" or "declare" shenanigans is to rhetorically label something as officially deceitful, improper, or otherwise incorrect.
2. A deceitful confidence trick or mischief causing discomfort or annoyance.
3. Mischievous play, especially by children.

In a sentence: In the movie Juno, the main character of the same name uses this word, “I mean I'm already pregnant so what other kind of shenanigans can I get into?”

Note that this word is much more common in the plural form.

The origin of the word is not really known, but at least four explanations have been suggested. Most interesting, it could come from the Palatinate German dialect. (For our German listeners: Palatinate is Pfalz.) In this dialect, schinägeln, that means “to work hard” closely resembles shenanigan.

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