I apologize for the double post. A WordPress Theme Update ate the last one causing quite the flap. See what I did, worked today’s word right into it. The good news is if you managed to read the first version, this one is slightly different.

So when we use flap today we mean any kind of fuss or excitement. That caused quite a flap! Weave the British Navy to thank for that one.

At the turn of the century (20th) when reliable radio communications were still a ways off ships used a series of flags to send messages to one another. The system f flags is caused semaphore code and is actually still used today.

On Royal Naval vessels during times of great excitement or problems or general hub bub flags would be run up the pole to let other ships know what was going on. The bigger the trouble the more flags. The more flags the louder the flap noise. As such any kind of commotion was termed a flap. Eventually the term left the navy and found its way into the everyday lexicon.