"Boogieman" and "Bugis" (from Singapore's shopping mall)

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Greetings from a computer place just outside the Bugis Junction here in Singapore. I'll soon leave those Thai massages behind for endless, mindless hours of parking tickets, as is my New York City destiny.

The food court at Bugis Junction is just amazing; one of the best treats I've seen. Maybe I'll get to it later.

The late David Shulman did some work on "Colonel Bogey" and golf. This is from a historical marker at the Bugis Junction:


ONE IN A SERIES OF BUGIS HERITAGE DISCOVERY POINTS

In the mid-seventtenth century, the Bugis were spreading out from Sulawesi to set up trading centres throught the region. Often they had to sail to distant lands and fight indigenous tribes. They rarely lost, which is how they received their reputation as fierce warriors. This is how the first Europeans saw them, and why the name of the Bugis entered into the English langtuage as the dreaded "Boogieman."


(GOOGLE)
VirtualTourist.com - Ekahau's Singapore Must See Activity Tips
... So feared were the Bugis that the expression, "Beware of the Bugis-man" was coined,
later becoming the "Boogieman" of our childhood nightmares. ...
www.virtualtourist.com/m/28be5/84b/4/?o=2 - 89k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages

GOODNITES Kids Site - Help FAQs - bedwetting site for kids ...
... Whatever you call him, word has it that the tall tale of the Boogie Man probably
came from the "bugis" pirates from old-world Indonesia and Malaysia. ...
www.goodnites.com/na/kids/help/help_faqs.asp - 30k - Cached - Similar pages

languagehat.com: SAFIRE'S BOGEYMAN.
... there might be another level of etymology (real or imputed) to booger/boogieman? ...
to South Sulawesi will tell you that 'Bogeyman' comes from Bugis, because they ...
www.languagehat.com/archives/001124.php - 19k - Cached - Similar pages
(...)
Every tourist guide to South Sulawesi will tell you that 'Bogeyman' comes from Bugis, because they were so fearsome and piratical. I always thought this sounded like a crock, but actually looking at the OED it doesn't seem so farfetched (the first reference for the 'goblin' type meaning is 1857 S. OSBORN Quedah ii. 17 Malay pirates..those bogies of the Archipelago.)
I should add though, that I have always found Bugis people to be perfectly honourable, and certainly they have never hidden under my bed with the intention of frightening me.

Posted by: Anthony at February 5, 2004 07:34 AM


(OED)
bogey, bogie

[Found in literature only recently; old people vouched (1887) for its use in the nursery as early as 1825, but only as proper name (sense 1). Possibly a southern nursery form of bogle, boggle, and boggard, or going back like them to a simpler form which, as mentioned under BOG and BOGLE, may be a variant of bugge, BUG ‘terror, bugbear, scarecrow’. But in the absence of evidence, positive statements concerning its relation to these words cannot be made. (That they are connected with the Slavonic bog ‘god’, is a mere fancy from the similarity of form, without any evidence.)]

    1. As quasi-proper name: The evil one, the devil.

  1836-40 BARHAM Ingol. Leg., Witches' Frolic, But hears the words ‘Scratch’ and ‘Old Bogey’ and ‘Nick’. Ibid. (1840) 322 Then Boguey'd have you sure as eggs is eggs. 1840 GEN. P. THOMPSON Exerc. (1842) V. 88 To admit to evidence such as avow their credence in ‘old Bogie’. 1851 THACKERAY Eng. Hum. v. (1858) 239 The people are all naughty and Bogey carries them all off. 1865 E. C. CLAYTON Cruel Fort. III. 85 I'll put out the light and go away, and leave you all by yourself with Bogie. 1879 M. CONWAY Demonol. I. I. iii. 16.



    2. A bogle or goblin; a person much dreaded.

  1857 S. OSBORN Quedah ii. 17 Malay pirates..those bogies of the Archipelago. 1863 KINGSLEY Water Bab. (1878) 19 On the top of each gate post a most dreadful bogy. 1863 BARING-GOULD Iceland 118 The sheepwalks have got a bad name for bogies.



    3. fig. An object of terror or dread; a bugbear.

  1865 Daily Tel. 27 Nov. 2/3 Reform is not a bogy to cheat, but a blessing to recognise and regulate. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. 135 Men..who discover bogies in every measure.



    4. Criminals' slang. A detective; a policeman.

  1924 S. SCOTT Human Side i. 23 Men will listen to the vilest epithets, but call them ‘bogey’, ‘brassey’, ‘copper’, or ‘policeman’, and they will be at your throat. 1931 W. F. BROWN in Police Jrnl. Oct. 501 She told a detective (bogey) she knew that Jack was in the brothel (case). 1936 J. CURTIS Gilt Kid 17 One of the bogies from Vine Street reckernizes me. 1960 Observer 24 Jan. 7/2 Suppose..a bogy did get it up for a villain now and again by making sure that some gear was found in his flat?



    5. A piece of dried nasal mucus. colloq.

  1937 in PARTRIDGE Dict. Slang 853/1 s.v. sweep. 1955 K. AMIS That Uncertain Feeling xii. 158 ‘You've got a bogey on your nose. Improves your looks no end.’ I was near the mirror... I peeped in and saw the bogey. It was large and vermiform and clung to the wing of my right nostril. Ibid. xiii. 176, I felt my nostrils carefully, testing for bogeys. 1967 D. PINNER Ritual xv. 148 He..removed wax from ears, bogeys from nose, blackheads from chin.



    6. An unidentified aircraft; an enemy aeroplane. slang.

  1943 WARD-JACKSON Piece of Cake 16 Bogey, a friendly aircraft [corrected in ed. 1945 to:] a suspect aircraft. 1944 Life 17 July 20 Before supper was over this evening, several ‘bogeys’as unidentified planes are called under such circumstanceswere seen approaching from different directions.



    7. attrib. and Comb., as bogy-man, -word, etc.

  1863 KINGSLEY Water Bab. iv. 146 The old German bogy-painters. c1890 Bogey man [see note s.v. BOGEY]. 1912 G. B. SHAW in Christian Globe 22 Feb. 433/4 It was manlier than clinging to Britannia's skirts for protection against the Bogey Man with the triple tiara. 1919 J. L. GARVIN Econ. Found. Peace 112 To confuse or weaken the Allies by using ‘Bolshevism’ as a bogey-word. 1926 FOWLER Mod. Eng. Usage 559/1 Bogy-haunted creatures who for fear of splitting an infinitive abstain from doing something quite different. 1954 J. R. R. TOLKIEN Fellowship of Ring I. vi. 121 The old bogey-stories Fatty's nurses used to tell him. 1959 Listener 16 Apr. 657/2 Black children were brought up to believe that if they were naughty the white bogy-man would come and gobble them up.



    Hence bogydom, the domain of Old Bogy. bogyism, the recognition of bogies. bogyphobia, dread of bogies.

  1880 Daily Tel. 2 Dec., A sulphurous odour..suggestive of bogeydom. 1876 Athenæum 14 Oct. 495/3 The author seems to be a spiritualist, or, at least, to have a leaning to banshees and bogyism. 1872 LIVINGSTONE in Daily News 29 July, I am not liable to fits of bogiephobia.