McGuffin and Bogey

Sat Oct 30 22:01:20 UTC 2010

According to this site http://names.mongabay.com/data/surnames_Mc.htm ,
"McGuffin" is ranked at 13,980 in frequency among U.S. surnames, with Smith
and Johnson and numners one and two respectively. ("MacGuffin" is
not listed.)  There were allegedly fewer than 2000 McGuffins in the United
States at the time of the 2000 census, or only .73 per 1000 inhabitants.

Presumably the incidence is rather higher in Scotland.

"Magoffin" is even less common: 83,965th in rank, with only 208
representives. "McGoffin" is at 123,314, with 129 representatives.
("Maguffin" is not listed.)

JL

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 5:00 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:      McGuffin and Bogey
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> OK, so this one may not be the origin of McGuffin, but the story had a
> great line and an odd line, so I thought I should mention it. On the
> other hand, it may be connected to the McGuffin as well, although there
> is certainly no sign of it in the story.
>
> http://bit.ly/9trVor
> Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Vol. 100 (509). p. 805++. 1900.
> Tales of the Links. By John Kendrick Banks. I. The Phantom Card.
>
> The piece in question is presented as correspondence between one
> Wilkinson Peabody and Willie McGuffin, Greenskeeper at St. Willieboy.
>
> The story circles around Mr. Peabody (no connection to Rocky and
> Bullwinkle, I hope) confessing a sin in winning his first tournament at
> St. Willieboy in 1894 by signing a card where he failed to include a
> penalty for retrieving one of his balls from a marsh. Mr. Peabody got a
> trophy--a silver-backed brush with a dragon head etching on it--the
> dragon that, apparently, keeps "telling" Mr. Peabody that he's a liar.
> Throughout the entire correspondence, Mr. Peabody addresses his
> counterpart as simply "McGuffin".
>
>
> First, the odd line:
>
> > My opponent took my word for it, and my caddie, who was looking for
> > apples, or butterflies, or whatever it is that caddies always are
> > looking for while a tournament is in progress, had not observed my
> > act, and what was under the rules a six hole was put down at four,
> > *beating Bogey himself by a stroke*.
>
> Who is this "Bogey" who was beaten by a stroke? Current use is, of
> course, a score of one over par, but that's not how it was used in the
> early 1900s. OED had bogey 1.a. (under golf) as something more closely
> resembling "par" today, with samples ranging from 1892 to 1910. This
> also extended to 1.b. which ranges from 1922 to 1959 (the former being a
> Wodehouse quotation, of course). It is 1.c., which is labeled "US", that
> gives the "one over par" definition, all post-WWII.
>
> However, none of the examples address "Bogey himself" as either a
> mythical or real person. Is it safe to assume that this was just a joke?
>
> Aside from the fact that everyone seems to have been pounding
> undesirable objects with a brassey (or brassy), there is also a postdate
> appearance of "hobnailed". I would have thought a word such as this one
> would not disappear so easily, seeing how it was a very functional piece
> of cobblery. Yet, OED has none of the words related to "hobnail" post
> the 1880s. Not a brilliant find, but suggestive nonetheless (and, I am
> sure, if I looked, I would find instances going into the late 1920s, at
> least).
>
> > I took the brush, paid the expressage on it, and pounded it with my
> > brassey, stamped upon it with my *hobnailed shoes*, and lofted it over
> > into the river with my jigger, a shapeless mass of silver, wood, and
> > bristles; and at every crack with the brassey the infernal dragon's
> > head on the back blared out: "Liar! Thief! Scoundrel!"
>
> Note that here the dragon head makes its appearance (for the second
> time, actually, but let's not split hairs--or boar's bristles, as it
> were). And the dragon seems to be doing a lot of talking. This brings me
> to a line quoted form McGuffin's reply.
>
> > Your dragon was a liar himself; and I never knew a dragon who wasn't.
>
> Although this has no direct connection to the mongoose story, the moral
> is essentially the same. "Never knew a dragon who wasn't" in no way
> implies that there was a dragon to begin with. And, to top it off, the
> dragon is not the feature of the story either, but it is directly
> associated with it. I understand if you find the connection a stretch,
> but give the story a quick read (it's only a couple of pages) and see if
> you find any connection. Note that the author disclaims the names at the
> end, so McGuffin--however irrelevant his identity is to the
> punchline--is not "the real name" of the greenskeeper. (And it appears
> to have been quite a popular fictional name at the turn of the century.)
>
>     VS-)
>
> PS: I talked to a friend who spent a large fraction of life in theater
> and the response to "McGuffin" was "an object that appears quite central
> to the plot but really is irrelevant". In addition, it's an object that
> may either feature prominently (the briefcase in Pulp Fiction) or not
> appear at all or only briefly (the Pink Panther). So it appears to have
> survived Hitchcock quite well.
>
> PPS: It has been suggested previously in one of the preceding threads
> that "McGuffin" is not a common word or even a common name and stumbling
> on it by accident in two unrelated verbal innovations is quite unlikely.
> A quick search dispels this notion: there are a number of legal cases
> that appear in GB (although some in multiple entries, but there are a
> lot of different jurisdictions) that carry the name of McGuffin as
> either one of the litigants or one of the actors (e.g., there are
> several insurance-related cases where McGuffin was the insured, but not
> a party to litigation). And, as I mentioned above, it was a name that
> was used with some frequency in turn-of-the-century fiction. But there
> are also quite a few random references--especially in histories of
> towns, regions and states--to various McGuffins and Maguffins.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org