ORIGIN OF "HUMBUG.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2008, 29 July 1919, Page 4

ORIGIN OF "HUMBUG.”

A correspondent of .the “Scotswriting on the origin of the word “humbug,” says:— “Many guesses have been made at the possible derivation of this slang word, which came into vogue about the middle of the eighteenth century. In an early edition of ‘Phrase and Fable’ Brewer makes it out to be two Irish words, ‘ium bog,’ meaning worthless money. James 11. issued from the Dublin Mint a sovereign made of lead, copper and brass, worth about 2d, and which could have been bought after the Revolution for a halfpenny sterling, and humbug at the time expressed real and fictitious worth. But at that time to hum also meant a pretence to admiration.

“He threatened, but behold ’twas all a hum.”

In “Notes and Queries” of March sth, 1892, the origin of the term is said to be Italian, “uomo bugiardo,” a lying man. But it has long been thought that humbug is a corruption of Hamburg. In “Cassell’s Illustrated Family Paper,” of January sth, 1852, it is stated to have originated in the following manner: —During a period when war prevailed on the Continent so many false reports and lying bulletins w ? ere fabricated at Hamburg that at length, when anyone would signify his Hisbelief in a statement, he would say, you had that from Hamburg, and so hamburg or humbug became a common expression of incredulity.

So we owe humbug to Germany!