A commotion, an uproar. Adopted from a fifteenth-century French term imitating a loud confused noise, it entered English in the late 1800s and has become a cliché. A Boston Globe column edited by Devra First had it, “What are your thoughts on the Josh Ozersky brouhaha? In brief the food writer pens a column about his wedding, saying caterers can’t cook . . . Then it turns out he didn’t pay for the food.”