Wordcatcher (27 page)

A ruse, trick, deceit.
Etymologically, a curiosity cabinet. Short for
hocus-pocus
, a nonsense phrase uttered by medieval jugglers and tricksters to distract their audience, and sometimes poke fun at them. Another influence on
hoax
was tall tales about the incantations of alchemists. There are many charming claims for the true origin of the word. Skeat simply says, “Short for
hocus
, i.e. to juggle, cheat.” Others insist that
hoax
is a twist on the Latin words intoned at the moment of transubstantiation during communion:
Hoc est corpus
, “Here is his body.” Still others claim that it derives from the faux Latin
Hax pax max Deus adimaxus
, employed by conjurers as a magic formula. By the 18th century it had simply become a shorthand verb for tricking or misleading and a noun for a fake. Famous
hoaxes
include the Piltdown Man controversy, and the fake memoirs of Howard Hughes, conjured up by a down-and-out Utah garage mechanic, Melvin Dummar. Companion words include
Hocus Focus
, a cartoon game of visual acuity enjoyed by children around the world (and that’s no
hoax
), and several
hoaxy
words, including
hokey-pokey, hokum,
and that good old Tommy James & the Shondells song, “Hanky Panky.”

The time between the wedding and everyday marriage, thought to be as sweet as honey, but only lasting the length of one moon.
The earliest reference clocks in with the 1546 recording of
hony moone,
and yet the notion of a new marriage being as sweet as
honey
but as fickle as the waxing and waning
moon
must be as old as
love
itself. Hunter wrote, in 1894, that the term derived from old Teutonic practice of drinking a honeylike liquid, metheglin, for thirty days after marriage. During this charmed month the bridegroom intended to hide his bride from family and friends, thought to be an echo of an the ancient practice of capturing women for marriage. The French version is
lune de miel,
a moon of honey, and the German is
flitterwochen
, from
flitter
, tinsel, and
wochen
, week, which works out to a tinsel-like romance that lasts but a week. When asked why she was late with a writing assignment while on her
honeymoon
, Dorothy Parker wired her editor: “Too busy fucking, and vice versa.” On the wall of a gas station outside Tucson I caught this graffito scribbled in red ink: “After our
honeymoon
I felt like a new man. She said she did too.” Not to be confused with
gandermooner
, a man who chases other women in the month after his wife has given birth, probably from
gander
, to take a look, and
moon
, as in the month after the wedding.

A jumping game for kids.
A 17th-century word for a 2,000-year-old game. Originally known as
scotch-hoppers
, and rooted in another old English game called hop-score, in
hopscotch
children hop over
scotches
; lines marking the squares to be hopped are scored or
scotched
in the ground. Companion words include
butterscotch
, from “scotched” or “burnt” butter. I recall catching a cartoon some years ago that imagined a young Neil Armstrong watching two kids playing
hopscotch
on a city sidewalk, and hearing one of them chant, “One small step for Jan, and one small step for Malcolm.” In the early 1960s, jazz artist Calvin Hayes accompanied his record producer father, Mickie Most, to the Abbey Road studios to record the Beatles, and wandered onto the paving stones of Studio One. He recalls, “I spent a couple of hours being taught to play
hopscotch
by none other than John Lennon.”

Wild exaggeration
. Word conoisseur Wilfred Funk cleverly defines
hyperbole
as “a wild pitch.” If this seems a stretch, a tautology, consider that the word comes flying to us across the field of dreamtime from the Greek
hyper
, over, and
ballein
, to throw or to throw over. It classical times that would’ve referred to a javelin or the occasional gymnastic use of exercise balls, but today it means to pitch a ball over the head of a terrified batter, or in baseball parlance,
to throw some “chin music.” Incidentally, “wild pitch” is an actual category in baseball, referring to any pitch too high, too wide, too wild for the catcher to catch. The ignominious career record in the major leagues is 277, held by the fireballer Nolan Ryan, and the single-season record is 30, by Red Ames, in 1905. These stats are—and aren’t—exaggerated examples of
hyperbole
! Companion “throw words” are no
problem
, from
pro-ballein
, to throw forward;
symbolic
, to throw together; and
diabolic
, to throw apart. And it wouldn’t be
hyperbole
to say that the German philosopher Heidegger wrote that human beings must not take anything in life as predetermined, but instead must practice “throwing-oneself-free.”

A pretender, a
phony
, a poseur
. The word twists and turns through the centuries, dating back to the Old French
hypocrisie
, in 1225, and reaching all the way back to the Greek
hypokrisis
, acting on the stage, and
hypokrinesthai
, to play a part, pretend, from
hypo
, under, and
krinein
, to sift, decide. As the playwright said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” However, some are acting authentic roles, and some are inauthentic. Thus,
hypocrite
describes someone who is adept at acting a part but is a persuasive pretender, one who exploits others with a phony sense of
crisis
. Companion words include
hypocrisy
, literally the acting of a part, according to the OED, and
figuratively the “simulation of a virtue or goodness.” The mordant Ambrose Bierce describes it as “prejudice with a halo.” My father’s old book of proverbs offers this one from Russia: “
Hypocrites
kick with their feet and lick with their tongues.”

One who shatters graven images.
The original
iconoclasts
were Eastern Orthodox Christians during the 8th and 9th centuries who violently disagreed with the use of
icons
, religious images, and some took to smashing those they found in churches, monasteries, convents. These medieval Greek
eikonoklastes
gave us
iconoclasm
, icon-breaking, from
eikon
, likeness, image, portrait, and
klon
, to break. Used theologically to describe the refusal of the Protestants after Luther to bow down before any man, and also by social historians since the 19th century to describe someone who shatters sacred cows or barriers. Thus, both Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. were
iconoclasts
in their own worlds, as certain artists such as Georgia O’Keefe, Jackson Pollack, and Gloria Steinem have been in theirs. “Rough work,
iconoclasm
,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes, “but the only way to get at truth.” Companion words include
iconic
,
iconography
, and that rare but great verb
iconify
.
Icons
as computer symbols seem to have been around forever, but only entered the language in 1982.