Guff etymology

guff. noun. Trivial or foolish talk or ideas. Synonyms include: nonsense, humbug, malarky. 

/gǝf/

“Tyra, having sat through hours of Zoom meetings, was completely disinterested in the guff coming out of Martin’s mouth.”

If you look in any official English dictionary and search the word “guff,” the above noun will appear with its condescending connotations and old-timey air. It’s not the most common word of the present day; I know I haven’t once in my entire life heard it used in this sense. But there it stands, asserting its seal of approval in all its official glory. Now, I don’t know where the general public stands on respecting the authority of published, mostly printed dictionaries, but I tend to take the royal lexicon of the English language as more of a suggestion. To me, the word “guff” is no exception. 

For decades, this term has meant something much more meaningful to the students of Ann Arbor living in Cooperative Housing across campus. At some point between the establishment of the first housing co-op in 1932 and present day, “guff” was adopted by co-op housing and turned into an acronym. Then, as language tends to, it continued morphing to adopt new uses and meanings. First, an adjective, sometimes a verb and always a shorthand for the core philosophy a co-oper learns to adapt as they live in a community founded to uplift. 

Ann Arbor is unique when it comes to student housing co-ops, which the Inter-Cooperative Council defines on its website as “organizations and businesses that are owned and operated collectively, for the mutual benefit of their members.” There are 16 individual housing co-ops under the ICC, an entirely student-founded and student-run non-profit organization, making it one of the largest student housing co-ops in the United States. 

But I had no idea about any of this history when I first moved into a co-op during my second ever semester of college. The year was 2020, and I had just spent a handful of months getting accustomed to living alone in a dorm built for two and finally mustering up the courage to talk to my neighbors. In November of the same year, the University sent out an email informing all undergraduates that their dorm contracts had been promptly canceled, and that if we wanted to continue staying on campus, we had to figure out what the hell to do about it — on our own. It was exactly the type of situation I did not want to be navigating as a teenage quasi-adult. I heard a handful of my hall mates talking about moving to a building called Escher co-op. I had no idea where it was located or what a co-op was, but these hall mates were the only people around me I had grown semi-familiar with. I didn’t know them very well, but I knew I wanted to get to know them better. So I decided to follow suit in taking the opportunity to get out of the dorms. 

Nestled in a secluded corner of an already woodsy and isolated North Campus, right on the outskirts of the Baits-Bursley conglomerate, rests a building in the shape of a misshapen horseshoe: M.C. Escher Cooperative House. It wears trees like the sleeves of a turtleneck as it hugs a grassy hill with a campfire and picnic table. Once you walk up this small hill to get to the center of Escher’s courtyard, you’ll be surrounded by nine evenly spaced doors with their own individual mailboxes and set of stairs. Oh, and one other thing: Each entrance has its own elaborate mural, inspired by a uniquely given name, spanning the entire door. From left to right proudly stand the passages to Trantor Mir, Walden, Sinclair, Bag End (yes, this is after “The Lord of the Rings”), Zapata, Valhalla, Russell, Karma and Falstaff, like knights at the round table. Over the river and through the woods, to Escher house we go. 

When I first arrived with my moving van of luggage to unload, I was greeted by Escher’s house president. His demeanor was immediately friendly, if a bit awkward. He sent his personal phone number out to contact when arriving to move in. There was no fanfare of a front desk or a check-in process, like when moving into Bursley. He just showed me to my room, helped me move my stuff, remembered he had a key to give me, and my co-op journey began.

All new members are given a comprehensive tour of Escher’s three floors and I quickly learned that the quirks of the building extended beyond the paintings on its doors. Here’s the general layout: The aforementioned nine doors belong to nine sections that an Escher co-oper can choose to move into. For example, I moved into a large single on the first floor of Walden, named after the book by Henry David Thoreau. Each section then has two floors of rooms and two common spaces, a lounge room on the upper floor and a kitchen on the lower floor. Every lounge room and kitchen come with their own unique appliances: Russell kitchen has a toaster oven and a wall of origami cranes, while Trantor Mir lounge has Settlers of Catan and a Nintendo Wii. 

Escher’s basement contains an even greater assortment of common spaces. There’s a large living room with couches, a projector, a pool table, two pianos, a functioning stripper pole and multicolored scribblings of general nonsense all over the walls. There’s also a music room with three more pianos of varying quality, three-fifths of a drum set, a handful of guitar amps, some microphones, and a ukulele. The biggest and probably most important room in Escher is the massive industrial kitchen connected to a bona fide cafeteria, affectionately named “O’Keeffe,” after the painter. Escher technically has two cafeterias for house dinners, O’Keeffe and Renaissance, but Renaissance was put out of commission during COVID-19 while I lived there. 

It’s in the O’Keeffe cafeteria that I first learned this term:

G.U.F.F. acronym. Generally Unrestricted Free Food.

I was standing in a group with the rest of the new members, masks and eyebrow raise of mild disbelief on all our faces, as the president of Escher spoke in a clear and practiced way about how we would be feeding ourselves. The three fridges and pantry are kept stocked with G.U.F.F. items like eggs, bagels, apples, sandwich bread, Eggo waffles, dairy and non-dairy milk, flour, cucumbers, cereal and many other basic food items that can be used for making meals. A portion of everyone’s rent goes toward the budget for stocking G.U.F.F. foods for every member. My favorites soon became the variety of G.U.F.F. coffee beans and the two barrels of G.U.F.F. ice cream diligently kept in the freezer.

I grew to realize during the first few weeks at Escher that I hadn’t just moved into a building on the grounds of my university, I had moved into a culture. A co-op, I came to learn, is a microcosm of democracy on campus, where policies are proposed and voted on every month, and members are elected to be in charge of planning events and taking minutes at meetings. It’s also a community where every member is meant to chip in, an attitude that’s embedded in the house culture and the system of the co-op itself. Within the first two weeks I lived at Escher, I was assigned three distinct chores: I had to clean the bathroom in my hallway once a week, vacuum the floors of Walden twice a week and help the chef make dinner on Mondays. Oh yeah, Escher pays a private chef to cook dinner for the whole house every weekday. 

I think what I miss most about Escher is the G.U.F.F. espresso. The machine they have down in O’Keeffe is top notch: A one stop shop for grinding coffee beans fresh, brewing one or two shots in your mug and stemming milk for the latte of your dreams. I made a cafe miel every day I lived there. 

I only stayed in Escher for one semester, but in following some of the same friends that first brought me to the co-ops, I moved right to Michminnies co-op for my whole sophomore year. Located in Kerrytown and featuring a facade of bright blue and purple, Michminnies was an entirely different experience from the quiet often found at Escher. Living in Escher felt like being at summer camp. Michminnies felt like the Airbnb Ms. Frizzle would start running when she inevitably got bored after retirement. Michminies is the hoarder house of the oldest lesbian you know, whose only possessions come from yard sales and art fairs. Michminnies has the alternative, truly eccentric atmosphere that college town coffee shops try to go for but are scared to fully commit to because they don’t want to lose commercial value. Michminnies is the house that the Property Brothers would design if their only creative direction was the Pinterest board of a stoned Beatles enthusiast and the word “maximalism.” Michminnies has the walls your parents kept you from painting when you were old enough to start having agency over your room but too young to put practicality over creative expression. It has more nooks than an Animal Crossing game and more crannies than a Crayola box. And I say all this with utmost pride and affection. There is nowhere else like it, besides maybe other co-ops. 

I arrived at Michminnies the same way I arrived at Escher, with boxes of stuff to unload and no idea what I was getting myself into. Living at Michminnies made me realize Escher is the odd one out when it comes to Ann Arbor student co-ops. Rather than being a large building made to house over 100 people, the average co-op is just a regular-looking house with space for around 25, give or take. Escher is also the only co-op on North Campus, and the only co-op with a hired chef to cook for so many people. Being in charge of making dinner is one of the chores at Michminnies and all other co-ops. The democracy remains the same in every co-op, but the policies and elected officials between can be as unique as the co-ops themselves. Michminnies has two presidents, three “Flight Attendants” (in charge of planning house events), an “Ordering Steward” (in charge of placing the food order), two “Maintenance Managers” (in charge of house upkeep), two “Work Managers” (in charge of delegating chores), two “Groundskeepers” (shovel snow in winter, take care of gardens in front of house, etc), two “Sin Stewards” (curate house alcohol) and more. Even Michminnies is different from most co-ops because it’s two houses in one, which is why many of the standard co-op positions are doubled. At Michminnes, I started to see the evolution of G.U.F.F. into more than just food:

guff. adjective. Denoting any food item, article of clothing, kitchen utensil, furniture item or object for giving away that ownership is relinquished on a first come first serve basis. Synonyms include: communal, free, up-for-grabs.

/gǝf/

“Sarah was incredibly happy to come home to a plate of guff cookies.”

“Dalton asked if the stickers on the table were guff.”

“After not having worn it for months, Emily threw her sweater in the guff closet for others to take.”

With the introduction of more than just guff food came subsections of how things were shared, and to what degree they were shared:

partial-guff. adjective. Denoting any food item, article of clothing, kitchen utensil, furniture item or object that the owner is willing to share but not indiscriminately. Usually used in reference to inorganic appliances, like a gaming computer or a coffee machine. 

Then, if “guff” can be an attribute given to any food or object, then that lends itself to being an action:

guffing. verb. 

/gǝfiNG/

1. The act of putting any food item, article of clothing, kitchen utensil, furniture item or object up for any member of a community to claim. See also: giving away.

2. Allowing members of a community to use a facility while you live there but maintain ownership of and will accompany said owner when they depart. See also: granting permission to use. 

“Lucy guffed her extra hangers so others could use them in their closet.”

“Alex wants to guff their desk chair so they don’t have to deal with it anymore.”

“Elijah thought guffing his printer was a good idea so others could use it while he’s still in the house.”

A perfect example of “guff” doing what it does best is the Michminnies guff closet. The basement of the purple half of the house has a designated place where any member can guff clothes they no longer wear. Anyone can then look through the clothes in the guff closet and pick items they like to add to their own wardrobe. It’s like a thrift store, where donation is incredibly easy and everything is free. I have a tank top, a turtleneck and a sweater vest from the Minnies guff closet that I still wear today. 

The definition of guff can even stretch beyond objects. One of the proposals I once voted on at Michminnies was to establish a “guff menace.” In a fully fleshed-out, written proposal presented in a PowerPoint to the entire membership, the role was described as a nominated position, but the identity of whosoever was chosen as guff menace would be kept secret from the rest of the house. The duty of the guff menace would be to sow mischief, plan pranks and playfully disrupt order around the house. We voted into action the guff menace during a monthly house meeting. I don’t remember much happening, but they were around, with the quiet satisfaction of knowing they were sanctioned to put plastic wrap over a toilet seat if they so desired. The proposals and policies we had to go through weren’t always this fun. There were more than a few meetings that spent hours going back and forth about what to do about a COVID-19 outbreak, where to spend money fixing up the house, the policy on guests during a pandemic. The house democracy creates space for every member’s voice to be consequential; listening to and accounting for everyone takes time. 

In all the usage and expansion of “guff” over the years, it all culminated into a meaningful shorthand for everything the co-ops stand for:

guff. Ideology. Motto. 

/gǝf/

“Guff love”
Guff is one of my favorite words. It’s a perfect example of one of my favorite aspects of language, that being its fluidity, creativity, its ability to stretch and transform over time. The expression of language is both inspired by our ideas and is the inspiration from which new ideas spring. Our words are never stagnant, and the best part is the agency to transform them and invent them comes from us. I have the authority to take the official dictionary definition of “guff” and flip it on its head, and — in my opinion — make it into something more productive. I don’t know exactly when this became the co-op motto, but “guff love” was the sign-off for every email I received from Michminnies last year. I started seeing it on sweatshirts and stickers, too. What a beautiful idea, that love is free, an unconditional promise, like it’s waiting patiently in a cupboard for anyone to access if they want to. I don’t live in the co-ops anymore, but I know I’ll bring guff love with me to wherever I call home.

Statement Correspondent Dani Canan can be reached at dcanan@umich.edu.