[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.

Laurence J. Peter

 

What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical
advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses
truth to deceive the public.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson

 

When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.

Lenny Bruce 

 

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.

Herbert Henry Asquith 

 

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy.
I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?

Charles M. Schulz

 

As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a
thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something.

Hagar the Horrible

 

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Hocus-pocus

 

Hocus-pocus is nowadays applied to meaningless talk or activity or to
anything, speech or action, that's designed to stop you seeing what the
politician or salesman is really up to or what's actually happening.

 

This budget, like so many before it, is an act of deception, a piece of
political hocus-pocus designed to make us believe councillors are spending
our money wisely. - Ottawa Citizen, 31 Jan. 2010.

 

It comes, of course, from an incantation used by conjurors to suggest that
they are evoking some magical spell or mystical force that causes the
seemingly impossible to happen. It appeared in the early seventeenth century
and was referred to in a number of plays of the period. The first was this,
in which a Dutchman, an absurd character called Vangoose, is speaking:

 

If it goe from de Nature of de ting, it is de more Art; for deare is Art,
and deare is Nature; yow sall see. Hochos-pochos, Paucos Palabros. - The
Masque of Augeres by Ben Jonson, 1622.

 

A famous appearance is in the title of the first book ever published in
English about conjuring, Hocus Pocus Junior, The Anatomy of Legerdemain, of
1634, which was popular and went through many editions. In his book Magic on
the Early English Stage of 2005, Philip Butterworth identifies the
previously unknown author of this little book as William Vincent, a famous
conjuror of his time, who was appointed as juggler to King James in 1619 and
who used the stage name Hocus-Pocus. At this time there was no formal
separation between jugglers, rope-dancers, conjurers and other performers,
whose acts were summarized as "feats of activity". Vincent did them all and
was particularly known for his ability to swallow and regurgitate daggers.

 

A later writer described his act:

 

I will speak of one man ... that went about in King James his time ... who
called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was
called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus
pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to
blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly
without discovery. - A Candle in the Dark; or, a Treatise Concerning the
Nature of Witches and Witchcraft, by Thomas Ady, 1655.

 

Vincent certainly popularized the term and became identified with it. He may
well also have invented it; we have no way of knowing. What is also unknown
is where it came from.

 

Many people today believe it originated in a corrupted form of the words of
the consecration of the host in the old Latin mass: hoc est (enim) corpus
(meum), "this is my body", an idea first aired by John Tillotson, Archbishop
of Canterbury between 1691 and 1694. But as this was part of an
anti-Catholic sermon, it may be taken with a fair-sized pinch of salt.
Another possibility, suggested in current Oxford dictionaries, is the
nonsense Latin phrase hax pax max Deus adimax.

 

Whatever the source, hocus-pocus was at first a term for jugglers and
conjurers as well as a conjuror's incantation. Later in the century it
evolved to mean a trick or deception. It may also be the source of another
common English word, since some authorities suggest that at the end of the
following century its first element was contracted to make hoax.

 

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In 1778, what did Oliver Pollock invent?

A:  The dollar sign $

 

In which city in 1847, was Alexander Graham Bell born?

A:  Edinburgh

 

What medical life-saver did Fredrick Sanger discover?

A: Insulin

 

What did James Outram invent?

A: Tramways

 

Richard Arkwright, the man who invented the Spinning Jenny, had what job?

A:  Barber

 

AG Bell opened a school in Boston in 1872 for Teachers of what kind of
children?

A:  Deaf

 

Cyrill Damien, in 1829,  invented what type of musical instrument?

A:  Accordion