bigwul, the word for today is SQUIGGLES! lol.
Squiggles is one of the reasons i admire early American furniture, there is a mysterious quality to it that english furniture for example, lacks. There is a certain "sameness" to english furniture because of the powerful guild (union) system in england that strictly regulated the construction and design of furniture.
In America, we had none of that, we were free to do as we pleased in construction as well as design which led to some magnificent adaptations in furniture construction & design. To sum up,
WE RULE! limeys DROOL! in early furniture.