The Strange Story Behind Hocus Pocus
Hello,
This week’s word is the exclamation “hocus pocus!” as used by magicians. You might also hear abracadabra or shazam, but we all prepare to be amazed if someone twirls a wand and calls on hocus pocus. But who was hocus pocus? Is it Elvish?
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Ready for a magic trick?
Hocus pocus has been used by conjurors for centuries. It dates to the 1630s and as there was also hocas pocas as name for a juggler or magician in the 1620s, it might be older. Hocus pocus is also used as a noun to describe tricks, again from the 1640s.
As early as the 1650s astute observers were remarking that the phrase, used to distract and entertain the crowd during tricks, might have its origins in the Latin words spoken during catholic religious services. The phrase “This is my body” used during the consecration was spoken in Latin as “Hoc est corpus meum“. Few of the faithful would have understood enough Latin to follow the details of the priest’s words. It would be the 1960s before those words were spoken in the local language of a church, instead of Latin.
Jugglers and street entertainers were known for “borrowing” other common Latin phrases to use on audiences who generally wouldn’t be familiar with the language. In the 1670s the phrase hiccus doctius was a phrase used by jugglers during their performances and sometimes was used as another word for juggler, just like hocus pocus. Hiccus doctius is likely to have been a twist on hicce es doctus, “here is the learned man” in Latin.
Words change with use and mispronunciation in English, and in all languages. It’s not surprising that this process would happen especially with words from a language spoken often but only understood by the learned in society. The 15th century jugglers and conjurors took a solemn phrase and gave it new life on the streets. The reaction of the priests is not recorded.
Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
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