Hitchcock's McGuffin story possibly derived from a story about an imaginary mongoose

[Garson O'Toole]

Dan, Victor, and Jon, thanks very much for your comments. Yes, I agree
that the term McGuffin would apply to gifts that were given weeks or
months in advance. The point I was trying to make with limited success
is that an existing term, "Xmas present", functions in a way that is
nearly identical to "McGuffin" (in my circumscribed experience).

For example, Schauffler may have hoped that a child would be told "You
cannot open that package yet because it is a 'McGuffin". Yet, the
sentence "You cannot open that package yet because it is a 'Xmas
present'" is already in use." The term "Xmas present" or "Xmas gift"
implies by default that the opening occurs on Christmas day (or
sometimes Christmas Eve) according to a commonplace protocol for
participants in this holiday tradition. This makes it more difficult
for a term like McGuffin to succeed because the semantic niche it is
trying to fill is already occupied.

There are at least two counter arguments: 1) Some Xmas gifts can be
opened at other times. Hence the term McGuffin is useful and fills a
new niche. - - But packages that are explicitly designated Xmas gifts
that can be opened in advance are non-default.  A gift giver must
elaborate by saying, "Here is your Xmas gift, but you can open it
now." The default is established and used within discourse.

2) McGuffin is one word instead of two and this compactness is
advantageous. - - Yes, it is one word, but it has the same number of
syllables as the term "Xmas gift".

 (If you give a gift even further in advance so that it is supposed to
be opened on the second occurrence of December 25 then you could call
it a "double-McGuffin". This semantic niche is currently unoccupied I
suspect.)


On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 7:29 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Hitchcock's McGuffin story possibly derived from a story
>              about an imaginary mongoose
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Victor is absolutely right.  In my childhood (Holy crap! It was closer to
> 1925 than to today!) gifts frequently made their appearance days or even a
> couple of weeks before Christmas Day and were routinely tagged "Do Not Open
> Before Xmas!" The reason was that they were in addition to the gifts that
> Santa would bring, which you couldn't possibly open before, say, 12:05 am in
> the Day itself, because they hadn't arrived yet.
>
> JL
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 11:57 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Hitchcock's McGuffin story possibly derived from a story
>>              about an imaginary mongoose
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> My assumption all along was that this was meant to apply to random gifts
>> given at disproportionately early times relative to the Xmas season. So,
>> if someone gives you a gift in August and tells you that it's your Xmas
>> present and not to be opened until Xmas, that's a McGuffin.
>>
>>     VS-)
>>
>> On 10/27/2010 8:22 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>> > Jonathan Lighter wrote
>> >> Surely "McGuffin" never really "meant" a "gift not to be opened till
>> >> Christmas" to any statistically significant number of people.
>> > The definition of McGuffin provided by Robert Haven Schauffler seems
>> > odd to me. In my cultural experience as a child and as an adult gift
>> > giver almost all gifts during the Christmas season were supposed to be
>> > opened on Christmas day. Thus almost all gifts would be labeled
>> > McGuffin's. Using a distinctive sounding appellation to designate a
>> > gift opened according to a commonplace protocol might be an impediment
>> > to adoption.
>>
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>
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