Growing up, my dad would say to me, “I don’t want any tomfoolery”. I always assumed this meant he didn’t want me to misbehave. Technically, it refers to foolish behavior or nonsense (also good advice, I suppose).
Its first recorded use was in 1812 and it stems from the Middle English Thom Foole, personification of a mentally deficient person. Tom Foolery also happens to be the name of a musical revue based on the songs of Tom Lehrer that opened in London in the 1950s. Lehrer, in addition to being a thirsty spirit, is a mathematician, teacher, composer, singer-songwriter, pianist and satirist who graduated from Harvard at the age of 18. I’ve read that his favorite drink is a gin martini and he’s the self-proclaimed inventor of the Jell-O shot.
One of the songs in the first act is titled, “Bright College Days” and Lehrer muses about college drinking:
Hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth
Six parts gin to one part vermouth
That sounds like tomfoolery to me.
A Thirsty Spirit 