It’s unusual when the impact of a column mostly boils down to one word.

But that was the case last week with my piece on Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s staff shake-up, and the one word was "futless," as in:

"… it’s fair to say that (Abercrombie’s) ‘new day’ survives only as a term of derision for 10 months of futless governance."

Many folks familiar with the local vernacular thought it was the perfect word and said it gave them a good chuckle.

But an explanation is owed those not so fluent in the local lingo, who were left scratching their heads. Some were certain it was a typo or a word that I simply made up.

"I’m sure you must have meant ‘fruitless,’" said one reader. Google suggests the same when you ask it to "define futless." Other readers were just as sure I meant "feckless."

Nope, I meant futless. Fruitlessness or fecklessness could certainly be encompassed by the broad meaning of futless, but the local word means so much more than that.

A few readers didn’t know the word, but recognized it as one of those terms that means pretty much what it sounds like it should mean.

"Not only is governance itself futless, but so too are its practitioners and products," a reader said in an email. "We have futless laws, futless senators, futless representatives, futless presidents, futless governors, futless mayors and futless candidates. And certainly futless pundits and punditry.

"This wonderful new word absorbs its meaning from its total applicability to all political boobery. Please tell me it wasn’t just a typo."

I’d love to take credit for coining a terrific new word, but this is one of those wonderfully evocative terms that came out of Hawaii’s melting pot of cultures long before I was crafting words.

Pidgin dictionaries often give "frustrated" as the definition of futless — and the word definitely has some suggestion of constipation — but that doesn’t capture its full meaning, and there’s no formal English word I know of that really does.

One astute reader said substitutes like "frustrated," "fruitless" and "feckless" are close but lack "that deeper local ring of not really giving a f—."

Here is my favorite explanation of the word, which was attributed to an unnamed source in an online discussion about slang:

"You know when you’re sitting on the couch, idly flipping through channels on the TV, half watching whatever’s on, but dissatisfied because you know you ought to be doing something real, and would be happier doing something real, but half an hour later you’re still on the couch? That’s futless."

And isn’t that just the perfect description of a typical annual session of the Hawaii Legislature?

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.