Boggled
by Bogus Bogeys
One would think that boggle,
bogus, & bogey would all be closely related. They may be. Or not.
It seems the Queens & Kings of Etymology can’t always dig up enough dirt to
prove anything, so instead, we have speculation, but fascinating speculation it
is. Here are some bits & pieces of it:
Bogey, bogie or bogy, may be derived from bug,
meaning scarecrow, bugbear or terror,
OR bogy
meaning the devil, OR from bogle,
meaning goblin
Over the years, this
derogatory term has been used to mean:
-one who spoils the game
or interferes with the pitch
-a tax collector
-a curse
-bad luck
-a dissatisfied customer
-a lump of mucus or slime
(& there’s a verb to go
bogy, which means to become prophetic or develop a second sight)
Bogus may have originated as a term for a machine which printed counterfeit money,
OR may have come from tantrabogus, a term used in Vermont
to refer to ill-looking objects, OR
from near Devonshire, where bogus was used to refer to the devil.
Over the years, bogus
has been used to mean:
-a sham
-counterfiet
-anything spurious
-something unpleasant,
dull, or silly
Boggle is somewhat straightforward in its etymology, as
most agree boggle came from the French word bogle, a spectre.
Over the years the verb boggle
has meant:
-to start with fright
-to take alarm
-to shy, as a startled
horse
-to hesitate
-to play fast or loose
-to scare
-to make a mess of
while the noun form of boggle
has meant:
-a goblin
-an objection
-an enjoyable word game
from Milton Bradley
It’s all pretty boggling.
Any thoughts on all this, stalwart followers?
My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com Partridge’s
Concise Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English, Hugh
Rawson’s Devious Derivations, & the OED.
And I wonder where Mr. Humphrey Bogart's Bogey fits in here? He did play some fairly devilish characters.
ReplyDeleteBut he certainly wasn't one of those tantrabogus.
Hi Anne,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the devilish connection with Mr. Bogart. Thanks for popping by.
A "bogie" in golf is "one over par," as in taking 5 strokes on a Par-4 hole. If you hit too many bogies, you get boogie-boarded.
ReplyDeleteHey Steve,
DeleteYes, indeed. The golf bogie apparently has some connection to the goblin/curse/bad luck bogie. It didn't occur to me to look for a relationship with "boogie."