Maricopa County Sheriff's Office controversies. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) is a law enforcement agency in Maricopa County, Arizona that has been involved in many controversies since 1995.
It was then used to mean 'a sudden state of activity (or inactivity) or state of mind', as in this early example, taken from William Warner's Albion's England, 1586: His seruants fear his solemn fittes.. The phrase 'fits and starts' is somewhat tautological, as both allude to sporadic activity.
The American slang term is first recorded in 1914, the shortened form fag shortly after, in 1921. Its immediate origin is unclear, but it is based on the word for bundle of sticks, ultimately derived, via Old French, Italian and Vulgar Latin, from Latin fascis.