ORIGIN OF' HUMBUG "

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 254, 22 July 1919, Page 4

ORIGIN OF' HUMBUG "

A correspondent of tho "Scotsman, writing on the origin of the word "humbug-," says"Many guesses have been made at tho possible derivation of this slang word, which came into vogue about the iniddio of the eighteenth century. In .111 early edition of. "Phrase and Fable" Brewer makes it out to be two Irish words, "ium bog," meaning worthless! nioncv. James II issued from the Dublin Slint a sovereign made of lead, copper, and brass, worth about 2d., and which could have been bought after the Revolution for'a halfpenny sterling, ana humbug at tho time expressed real and. fictitious worth. But nt that tiiue_ to» hum also meant a pretence to admira* tion.

"Ho threatened, but behold 'twas all a hum."

In "Notes and Queries" of March 5, 1892, tho origin of the term is said to bo Italian, "uomo bugiardo," a lying wan. But it has long been thought that humbug is a corruption of Hamburg. In "Cassell's Illustrated Family Paper," of' January 5, 1552, it is stated to liave originated in the following mariner:— "During a period when war prevailed on the Continent 60 many false reports and lying bulletins were fabricated at Hamburg that at length, when anyone would signify his disbelief in a statement, he would say, you had tlint from Hamburg, and so hamburg or humbug became ft common expression of incredulity." So wo owe humbug to Germany!