(ker-FUFF-ul)

Means: A commotion or fuss, usually over something that didn't deserve it.

Etymology: Scottish, from the 1800s, first spelled curfuffle. The fuffle part is an old Scots word meaning to throw into disorder, and the front end probably comes from Gaelic car, "twist." So it's literally a twisted-up mess.

"There was a whole kerfuffle at the league meeting over whether the trade was collusion or just two idiots."

De Stijl ("the style" in Dutch) started in 1917 with painter Piet Mondrian and friends who wanted to strip everything down to straight lines, right angles, and the three primary colors plus black, white, and gray. Furniture maker Gerrit Rietveld built its best-known object, the Red Blue Chair: just flat boards and sticks that run past each other at the joints. Here's the twist: his first version, around 1918, was plain stained wood, and it didn't get its red, blue, yellow, and black paint until about 1923. A year later he designed the Schröder House in Utrecht, which looks like the chair turned into a building.

Penultimate doesn't mean "the very best" or "the ultimate." It means second to last. It's Latin paene, "almost," plus ultimus, "last," the same paene that's in peninsula, "almost an island." So the penultimate beer of the night is the one right before last call, not the best one you ever had. And if you really want to show off, third to last is antepenultimate.

My wife ran off with my best friend last week.

I sure do miss him.

Each one is a common word or phrase. Name all four.

1. MIND written on top of MATTER
2. R | E | A | D | I | N | G
3. GROUND written on top of FEET FEET FEET FEET FEET FEET
4. DEATH LIFE

Answers in tomorrow's issue.