26 May 2021
When something is on the fritz or on the blink it is out of order or otherwise in unsatisfactory condition. The two phrases are Americanisms and start appearing around the turn of the twentieth century, but otherwise the origins of both are obscure.
The two leading hypotheses for the origins are, first, that on the fritz comes from the German pet name Fritz, short for Friedrich. Specifically, the cartoon characters the Katzenjammer Kids, Hans and Fritz, are often put forward as inspiration for the phrase. But there is no evidentiary trail linking the phrase with anyone named Fritz or even anyone of German extraction in general. Plus, there is no clear motivation for associating that name with some kind of mechanical failure. The second is that fritz is echoic of the sound a machine makes while failing, or that blink represents the light going out in a device. While this second explanation sounds plausible, there is, again, no evidentiary trail. None of the early uses are found in engineering circles or refer to mechanical failures.
What we do know is that on the blink is recorded before on the fritz, although the dates are close enough that we can’t tell which came first in oral use. On the blink appeared in an 1898 story by Paul Gardiner in a passage about traveling through Kentucky:
I began to think that my train had crossed the border into some unfrequented and uninhabited country. In the places at which we stopped, nothing was to be seen in the way of busy streets and well kept lawns and fences, but on the contrary, to use a slang expression, things were “on the blink.”
Railroad stations were uninviting. The name of the stop on the signboard could scarcely be read. Men stood about in slouched felt hats, their dirty jean trousers tucked into their boot tops, beards un-kempt, round, stoop shouldered, their hands pushed down into their pockets.
George V. Hobart, writing under the pseudonym Hugh McHugh, used on the blink in his 1901 book John Henry:
He'll forget it, and day after to-morrow he'll flash the intelligence on me that he has invented a strangle-hold line of business that will put Looey Harrison on the blink.
And Robert Chambers used it in his 1918 The Restless Sex. The person named Steve in this passage is a woman:
For the background of familiar things framed her so naturally and so convincingly and seemed so obviously devised for her in this mellow old household, where everything had its particular place in an orderly ensemble, that when she actually departed for college, the routine became dislocated, jarring everything above and below stairs, and leaving two dismayed and extremely restless men.
“Steve's going off like this has put the whole house on the blink,” protested Jim, intensely surprised to discover the fact.
The earliest recorded instances of on the fritz are found in New York prison slang, although what significance this may have, if any, is uncertain. They are all found in the Star of Hope, a prison newspaper that started at Ossining (Sing Sing) prison, but which quickly expanded to include articles and literary items from prisoners in other New York penitentiaries. The earliest is from the 25 August 1900 issue of the paper:
Now you tell me “to lend you my ears.” Now all dis kind of talk is on de fritz, see? And if you want me to rap to you, you've got to talk plain English, Sing Sing English. See?
And a few months later, on 28 October 1900, a prisoner in the Auburn, New York prison contributed this on the subject of marriage:
I sez to him, sez I, “Chack, if youse take de wall-eyed push collectively an’ not indoowiduals youse’ll fin’ dat marridge is not a failure, perwiding de game’s played on de level, wid no table or sleeve hold-outs. It’s dese yer hold-outs wot queers de game an’ puts de marridge institootin on de fritz.”
That’s what we know about the two phrases. Without further evidence, anything more is speculative. Sometimes “origin unknown” is the correct, if unsatisfying, answer.
But before I leave it, I should mention that researcher Stephen Goranson connects on the fritz with uses of friz, a dialectal spelling of freeze or froze. But I find his hypothesis unconvincing.
It is true that friz is commonly found in late nineteenth-century writing as a dialectal spelling of freeze. Goranson makes the connection with on the fritz through two citations. The first is in a story, “‘Jimmy the Bunco's’ Thanksgiving Dinner,” that appears in the New York Herald on 20 November 1892:
“Lemon water ice?” reiterated the “Bunco,” with a mystified air; “made o’ lemons and water?”
“I dunno’ as I cares on the friz,” murmured the “Bunco” thoughtfully. The word bore too close a resemblance to his general state of being.
The “general state of being” of on the friz could be a precursor to the more specific defective state of on the fritz. But it seems to me that friz here refers to carbonation, and “I dunno’ as I cares on the friz” means that Bunco doesn’t like fizzy drinks. The slang frizzle, meaning champagne, is attested from the middle of the nineteenth century.
The connection to freezing is made through the poem “Suppose” by prisoner Auburn 23,669 published in the November 1902 issue of Star of Hope:
What would the little acorn do
If it had no place to grow?
Would Santa Claus be on the "fritz"
If we never had any snow?
There is a context of winter and snow, but by 1902 the phrase was well established in Auburn prison slang, and this appears to be just another use of on the fritz, with any connection to temperature being coincidental.
Sources:
Chambers, Robert W. The Restless Sex. New York: A.L. Burt, 1918, 104. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Gardiner, A. Paul. “I Kicked Your Dog.” A Drummer’s Parlor Stories. New York: A.P. Gardiner, 1898, 86. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Goranson, Stephen. “‘On the Fritz’ at Sing Sing.” Language Log, 18 March 2018.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. fritz, n.2., blink, n.1., frizzle, n.
“The Hard Man: Makes a Few Observations on the Subject of Marriage.” Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio), 28 October 1900, 26. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Hotten, John Camden. The Slang Dictionary. London: Hotten, 1864, 138. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“‘Jimmy the Bunco's’ Thanksgiving Dinner.” New York Herald, 20 November 1892, 13. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
McHugh, Hugh (pseudonym of George V. Hobart). John Henry. New York: G.W. Dillingham, 1901, 80–81. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2019, s.v. fritz, n.2; second edition, 1989, s.v. blink, n.2.