Once in a while, it seems as though the Universe is telling me to pay attention to something. Twice today I’ve run into the word “lurch”, so I decided to do a little research. I’d always wondered how we started using the phrase “left in the lurch”, and the latest World Wide Words newsletter gave a brilliant etymology – as always: it’s from a sixteenth century French dice game.

But what really grabbed me was the phrase meaning “to lose embarrassingly badly”: demeurer lourche.

It’s possible I’ll write a Romance where someone is left in the lurch, but before then I may have someone use this phrase. It would say a lot about a character if s/he lamented his run of demeurer lourche. I may not know this character yet, but I’d love to use this without forcing it on anyone.

Per Dictionary.com, here’s the origin of the word that started this: lurch.

1525–35; < Middle French lourche a game, noun use of lourche (adj.) discomfited < Germanic; compare Middle High German lurz left (hand), Old English belyrtan to deceive

I hope none of you out there are left in the lurch or in any way discomfited over this holiday weekend.