Garry writes: 'Just heard an American reporter say, “on the Fritz.” My reloes in South Australia called processed meat Fritz and we say a machine is “on the Fritz.” Where did it come from?'
Well, the answer to that, Garry, is not short—because ‘fritz’ has multiple meanings.
Let’s begin with the source.
The earliest slang meaning for ‘fritz’ was a German soldier (recorded from 1883 and used in both World Wars)—because Fritz was once a common German name.
Then there’s that odd meat.
What’s the story behind that?
Here in Australia the meat called ‘fritz’ was so called because its original name was German sausage.
(In fact, it was a type of processed meat that had been introduced into Australia by German settlers, coming to the Barossa Valley in South Australia.)
Over time it was given lots of other names around Australia, some of them inexplicable—such as: devon, polony, Strasburg, wheel meat, luncheon sausage and a dozen others.
I list them all in my book about Australian regionalisms called Word Map.
This process of renaming ‘fritz’ something else began with the outbreak of the First World War—because German sausage sounded unpatriotic, so its name was changed to ‘imperial sausage’ and then to ‘Windsor sausage’ and then all the rest!
As for ‘fritz’ meaning broken—this appears to be American in origin recorded from 1908 when ‘to fritz out’ meant to go bung.
So how was the word given this completely unrelated meaning?
No one knows for sure.
Even the great slang lexicographer Jonathan Green can’t explain why.
My suggestion is that this first appeared at the beginning of the electrical age—with the earliest electric light bulbs for instance—and ‘fritz’ resembled the fizzing noise that anything electrical makes when it dies and goes out.
Just a guess—but hey, sometimes even guesses are right!
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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