Hi

New here but looking around the threads already feel I am with like-minded people so please forgive me diving straight in!

Have always been fascinated by what are known as "reduplicative/reduplicated compounds" or flip-flop words. I like the rhyming ones most of all, hence my online name. Hugger-mugger should (imho) really be hyphenated.

I had a look on this forum for any discussion of these and there has been a bit. Hugger-mugger was mentioned. Sorry, I can't do the link/citation thing, perhaps someone else could do it for me (and tell me how to do it, maybe? ).

It would seem to be quite puzzling in terms of meaning, as Wordcraft pointed out. So I had a bit of a look around & it got even more interesting.

It had/has two (fairly distinct) meanings and then the meaning appears to have shifted over time to one that I and others now use. I also suspect a transatlantic divide though that may fall down!

I have always used it to mean squashed in together, very close to one another. So - "we were all hugger-mugger in the train". Almost an equivalent of "cheek-by-jowl" but with an element of pushing and crowding added in. It would refer to people or buildings, typically.

I have also found similar usage by Marina Warner in the New Statesman earlier this year: "we were squashed in hugger-mugger on the steps" and Jeanette Winterson uses it in Battle of the Sun - "...a stream of boats, a race of boats, hugger-mugger, dodging one another, grazing one another...". There are various others in this vein.

However, this is definitely not the original meaning. The OED says (adv.) 1. Secret, clandestine. 2. Disorderly, confused, makeshift.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (the 1956 edition) gives a quote from Hamlet using the first definition and also says " "In modern speech we say - He lives in a hugger-mugger sort of way; the rooms were all hugger-mugger (disorderly)"

The first usage seems to survive into modern times, (in phrases such as "The Trust has proceeded hugger-mugger up till now, surreptitiously going around putting the arm on people") though I would not describe it as being in common use here in the UK. The second usage I am hard pushed to find though I am willing to admit that my own type of usage may well have an element of 'disorderly' in it.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this. Meanwhile, I really ought to be making bread sauce and wrapping presents!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Here's Wordcrafter's post about hugger-mugger.

Thanks for that, arnie.

I saw the one-look definition but can't say I've ever seen the same one anywhere else. I think the example it uses is poor as well - "He engaged in the hugger-mugger of international finance" could equally well be a reference to secrecy and clandestine activity (as we now know!).

As for origins, Brewer's thinks it is probably an extension of hug though gives no justification for this.
However, good old OED gives a date of origin of 1526 and also says:
"[Preceded by hucker muckeror moker and hoder moder prob. based on dialect mucker, ME. mokere hoard, and ME. hoderhuddle, wrap up; ult origin unknown]" There is also reference to hudder-mudder which appears to be even older.

The "huddle" struck me, as that seems to point towards the use I am familiar with. Again from OED:

Huddle 1. A mass of things crowded together in in hurried confusion; a confused crowd of persons or animals 2.a)confusion, disorder. b) Disorderly haste, hurry, bustle.

Can someone tell me whether hugger-mugger is used in the US and if so in what form?

Nice to see you here, huggermugger! How did you get interested in the word?

If it were a noun, it could be someone who attacks affectionate folks.

were noon

Welcome back aboard, Geoff.

Thanks, Z. It takes a while to reinvent oneself!

It takes a while to reinvent oneself

Tell me about it.

PS: Any significance in my being member #666?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Geoff,

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
Thanks, Z. It takes a while to reinvent oneself!

You always were a self-made man.
Welcome home.

At least you survived the tragedy at the Home.

Asa survived the catastrophe, but, as noted in the community posting, he finds wearing chaps sans pants in the winter a bit drafty.

As for my own survival, getting my wife, two large dogs, two birds who don't like each other, and a cat across the country in the midst of the worst blizzard in several decades in a small car was sufficient survival practice to last me for a loooooong time!

Great to see you, Geoff and jheem as well. I'd bring back Sir Joseph Swan, but I'd worry that he'd start something here.