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

Thu Oct 28 13:47:17 UTC 2010

Conjectural connection: Someone close to Schauffler heard the term
"McGuffin" in the story. Perhaps within Schauffler's hearing, he or she gave
a child a Christmas present, saying facetiously, "It's a McGuffin."
Probable eply: "What's that?"  Ans.: "It means you can't open it till
Christmas."  Amusement.

It seems to me that that or something like it is all it would have taken for
a journalist to say breezily that "McGuffin" "means" such a gift.  His own
experience with "McGuffin" seems to have been the prompting for his article
on needed new words and for him to say, "I forget who was the creator of
'McGuffin,'" which implies, seriously or not, that he once knew

I started a newspaper search for "McGuffin/McGoffin," etc. + "gift" in some
related sense, but the number of obviously unrelated hits (and bad hits) on
the surname was too daunting.

JL

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:08 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Hitchcock's McGuffin story possibly derived from a story
>              about an imaginary mongoose
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
> >
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> >> 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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> truth."
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