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From: wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Where does "on the fritz" come from?
Message-ID: <4267@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 20-Jan-85 00:56:44 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.4267
Posted: Sun Jan 20 00:56:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jan-85 01:43:39 EST
References: <130@heurikon.UUCP> <971@amdahl.UUCP>
Reply-To: wildbill@ucbvax.UUCP (William J. Laubenheimer)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 19
Xref: watmath net.misc:7317 net.nlang:2443
Summary: 

>> Does anyone know the origin of the phrase:
>> "It's on the fritz"?
>
>I couldn't find where it came from, but the first usage I
>found was 1928: "That glycerine was on the fritz..." (American
>Mercury, Aug, 487/2.).
>Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam

The way I've heard the phrase explained, the Katzenjammer Kids may
be involved. \\The Katzxenjammer Kids// was a newspaper comic strip
which achieved its greatest popularity in the early part of the century.
The Kids were general all-around hell-raisers who greatly enjoyed
practical jokes. I believe that one of them was named Fritz. This
could easily lead to the notion of something malfunctioning because
Fritz had gotten at it, thus, "on the Fritz".

                                        Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
     ...Killjoy went that-a-way--->     ucbvax!wildbill