Thing Not To Be Today: footling.

To be footling is to be trivial, silly, or petty.

A footling rule might ban men without ties from a bar (especially if you've turned up without one).

A footling rule might require you to remember a password containing twenty three random characters (including at least one uppercase, one numeral, and some other character) and not write it down anywhere.

It might refuse to serve the steak without the onions. 

Footling is word of exasperation. It expresses impotence, impatience and scorn.

(It's also, incidentally, a board in the bottom of a boat and a case of a baby who wants to be born feet first.)

Footling expresses the belief that the world is spiked with spiteful jobsworths intent on inconveniencing the honest man.

Ah well. 

It's nice to have a word for it, isn't it.

Thing Not To Be Today: footling. This word is connected to the verb footle, which probably comes from the French foutre, from the Latin futuere, both words being to do with the act of human reproduction.