"flounder around" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it as an adjective to describe someone's behavior who is confused, disoriented, uncertain, or fumbling in some way. Example sentence: The new student was floundering around trying to find her classroom.
"Jon, you've never done this either!" was the crushing verdict of Abdullah Mahmood, a 25-year-old novice skier, after he had watched me flounder around for a traumatic 10 minutes during which I wondered whether, despite decades of skiing experience, the sport was finally about to claim a broken leg from me.
Why flounder around with anyone else? Try a little magic.
Are we just supposed to flounder around like helpless victims for the rest of eternity?
NP: Did you hit on Life is Good early on, or did you flounder around for a while?
As the numbers for Obamacare keep getting better and better, Republicans flounder around with nothing to show for it but a snake oil pitch.
But I think somehow in the world of entertainment there always was one there, because when you make it in the States — I mean, you could just flounder around in Canada for years, but if you make it in the States, you have then made it in Canada.
I can see Blitzee floundering around and Caro swimming toward her, swimming strongly, on the way to rescue her.
"The horse was floundering around and gathering himself and his ploughing [sic] hurt me a great deal," he added.
And a decade, 15 years after it all started, we're still floundering around, with far too little information".
When it comes to helping vulnerable people with a neurological condition, the government is floundering around in a fog of its own making.
"What is clear is that you are floundering around and you have no answer to Labour's energy price freeze," he said.
