Talk:Hocus-pocus

Move?
Shouldn't it be Hocus pocus (magic)? The article doesn't usually capitalize Pocus, so I'm not sure why it's capitalized in the title. NickelShoe 01:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I fixed it WP:BOLDLY.  Jujutsuan  (talk &#x7C; contribs) 15:37, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Romans
"Another phrase from the Bible, possibly misunderstood by Romans who thought of Christians as an incestuous, cannibalistic cult (as described by Tacitus), might be from the holy ritual: hoc est poculum ("this is the cup"), a phrase from the Last Supper, used in Roman Catholic rituals."

This is rather entertaining idea that actual ROMANS could have misunderstood such a simple phrase as "hoc est poculum" pronounced in their own language, and distort it to the "hocus pocus". Another problem with this is that such a phrase distorted in antiquity is unlikely to contain 'h', as 'h' was completely silent in spoken Latin fromt he time of Cicero and in the subsequent Christian period in antiquity, so it could not have been transferred to script and/or modern languages.

The presence of the 'h' in hocuspocus, and popularity of the word in European languages, make the derivation from Church Latin "hoc est corpus" plausible. 82.210.159.30 14:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't Hocus Pocus the name of a real magician?
For example I find online at http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19991007 the following -

''Hocus pocus is only slightly less of a mystery. It first appears as a the name of a juggler and conjurer in the seventeenth century. The term was common in juggling and other performances at the turn of the eighteenth century when the cleric Tillotson wrote, "In all probability these common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of 'hoc est corpus', by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation." ''

I have always been told by magicians that Hocus Pocus is the most famous magician of them all, because everybody knows his name.


 * Hocus Pocus Junior in 1634 literally wrote the book on the cups and balls, but I have no idea if this "Junior" fellow and Hocus Pocus were related, or even the same person. There's even a picture of him! See the text online at http://www.hocuspocusjr.com and more about his life here: http://www.hocuspocusjr.com/hocvspocvsjr.htm -- Yekrats (talk) 17:42, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

from Hoc est porcus
Hoc est corpus > Hoc est porcus > Hocus pocus

porcus(Latin) = pig, swine  /    corpus(Latin)= corpse, body

Most of the magicians were satanists! Böri (talk) 12:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC) If one looks up the French word PORC in Randle Cotgrave's French English Dictionary of 1673, one will see terms a certain elite used to describe those considerd PORC, the Porc de Dieu ansd the Porc du Roy. M. A. Murray names these sadistic criminal elites of a phallic cult the "Dianic Cult" in her book The Divine King in England. The Dianic Cult goes back at least to the Iron Age invasions: the Druid Taliesin writes of the priestesses known as "dear little pigs". For further information, The White Goddess by Robert Graves is somewhat helpful. The subject is not much talked about in academia because it was active even in early modern times. In addition, the Cult was not specific to any mainstream religion whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim--the Cult existed from time immemorial independent of all these and sometimes hiding behind them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:DFC0:48:9D24:D694:F824:2BF5 (talk) 05:50, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Further Speculations: Children
Without question I definitely prefer the suggestion that "hocus pocus" is a corruption of the liturgy of the Eucharist--but corrupted initially by children rather than by jugglers or magicians.


 * Re the Romans section: It shouldn't be necessary to go back to early Latin-speaking Romans. Picture little kids, speaking whichever language but in any case without an ounce of Latin in them, constantly hearing a mumbled phrase each time they receive the Eucharist, and consider also the tendency of children to turn apparently nonsense phrases into little rhymes, being particularly careless of consonants--hence the "pocus". Further, consider that a commonly heard children's chant goes "Hocus pocus, dominocus". This last word is clearly a rhymed corruption from the frequently heard Latin word for "Lord." FWIW I conjecture that "hocus pocus" in this specific form might originally be of English origin. This is not to say that the phrase, once generally popularized, may not have subsequently been incorporated as is into various other languages. To determine this we would need to have authoritative earliest usages in languages other than English.


 * For the same reason I think it's unnecessary to speculate, as in the from Hoc est porcus section, that "corpus" might have been deliberately changed into "porcus", simply because in making up nonsense rhymes children tend to be much more careful of vowel sound values than of consonants. Not to mention, again, that presumably these children have no knowledge of Latin, or the meanings of "corpus" vs "porcus".


 * Re the Wasn't Hocus Pocus the name of a real magician? section: I don't see any reason why the phrase "hocus pocus" itself might not date back to early Medieval times, rather than first appearing with an English 17th C juggler who presumably made up the name out of thin air. As Iona and Peter Opie have frequently pointed out, children's little rhymes and phrases can persist for centuries with little or no change, and with little or no notice ever being taken of them by adults. Since the reference in the phrase either was or might easily be inferred to have been to the "magical" Transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, it's easy enough to imagine a juggler/ magician taking the name for himself, and either thence or previously, the phrase becoming a generalized term for any such person. Having "been told by magicians that Hocus Pocus is the most famous magician of them all" sounds very much to me like a folk attribution.

Written sources are of little help here in establishing any kind of actual history of the phrase's oral usage, particularly by children. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:05, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It may have been children, then again, medieval Europeans sometimes treated the Host itself as being magical, making amulets of protection of them, etc. I could see an illiterate commoner, having only heard the unfamiliar foreign words spoken, botching it when trying to recite the liturgy from memory, in an attempt to enchant the wafer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.14.84.220 (talk) 03:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with you both. It is credulous and absurd to take a rhyming name like "Hocus Pocus" or "Ochus Bochus" for a magician (whether real or mythical, and he is quite a shadowy figure in any case) as genuine, especially in Scandinavia or England: It sounds Latin, not North Germanic or English. It is quite obviously a pseudonym and not necessarily older than the phrase at all. Moreover, the originators were not necessarily children: adults used to engage, and still engage, in the same kind of wordplay, and indeed, the Latin used in church was a meaningless jumble to most medieval churchgoers by far anyway. Finally, the corruption of hoc est corpus into hocus pocus, with the consonants swapped, is quite natural, either an error of persistence, remote assimilation or serial analogy, frequent in numerals, which are often recited in a row, or other words frequently used in collocations (such as German nachts in tags und nachts, where the -s of nachts is etymologically spurious, as the genitive of Nacht does not end in -s and has never done so, but the idiom motivates the extension), or a deliberate modification to make the words rhyme. The hypothesis that hocus pocus (etc.) is an accidental or deliberate corruption of words used in the Latin mass, especially in the rite of the Eucharist with reference to Transsubstantiation (which can easily be likened to a magical trick), either directly or via hax max deus adimax (or the like) is clearly the most convincing explanation. Also compare hoax. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:24, 9 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Child rhymes and oral traditions: I suppose they might have evolved, and spread through different pathways both through space and time. That would also explain the variance.
 * As a child in 1950ies I encountered (in Slovenia) the variants "hokus pokus preparatus" and "hokus pokus cenciburus" (heard from parents and grandparents, catholic tradition). As read in Slovenian language (sorry, can't give how it's read, yet), both have rhyme and rhythm that gets easyly remembered. The first included latin word for "prepared", which possibly relates to a prepared trick of stage magics, but elders are no more around to ask for confirmation about that. I have no idea (yet) about what, if anything, cenciburus might mean, but has rhyme and rhythm to easily remember. Both could also be possibly usefull to playfuly help develop child's abilities for articulation of complex sequences of sylables (tongue twisters; symilar articulation training is used with adults for public speaking and singing).
 * As a child, I also learned latin and catholic latin rite prayers, but was not aware of the similarity to "... hoc est enim corpus meum ... " of the mass, nor of possible other relations between the two word strings, until much later. I also don't remember this similarity or relation being ever mentioned by elders, but suppose significant variance about that between cultures, families, and through time.
 * About stage name I agree with  Milkunderwood. IMO it is highly probable, and probably happened several times, but probably as a reuse of prevous (probably by then received through generations of oral tradition) ryme as a stage name, and not the reverse. But those (supposed, by IMO higly probable) oral traditions about cildren's rhymes were not seen as notable, and were either not written down in time whehen literacy was limitted, had not survived, or had not yet been discovered.   --Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 14:56, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

earlier source possibilities
A 1622 book The Masque of Augeres by Ben Jonson

If it goe from de Nature of de ting, it is de more Art; for deare is Art, and deare is Nature; yow sall see. Hochos-pocho, Paucos Palabros.

David Copperfield's Museum contains a 1654 book titled Hocus Pocus Jr.



see also



A medevial Jewish source for hocus pokus?
In Rabbi Joshua Trachtenberg's 1939 book, Jewish Magic and Superstition, (Republished in 2008 by Forgotten Books.), an unusual etymology for this phrase is proffered. On page 105, Rabbi Trachtenberg (1904-1959) posits that the phrase "Akos Pakos" is the source of hocus pokus. This phrase in turn is part of a 15th century German-Jewish manuscript that itself was translated into Latin. Subsequently this German manuscript was translated into Hebrew by Italian Jews and then adopted by German Jews unaware of its origins. All this is in the frame of reference of how mystical terms in medieval Judasism came into being. For those with an interest in exploring Jewish Mysticism, I recommend this book. It is rather dry reading (It was Rabbi Trachenberg's PhD thesis from Columbia U.)

As references Trachtenberg cites various works by authors including Moris Gudemann, J. Perles (Graetz Jubalschrift),Max Grunwald (MGIV, V (1930), E Levy, REJ (LXXXII 1926), and Moritz Steinschneider (Cat. Munich, P. 109)

How convincing this is is hard to say, but It's the first reference to this source that I have ever found, having looked into hocus pocus for some time now. As with so many mysteries, it is not the dearth of clues that leaves us blind, but rather the multiplicity of same.

Nice to find a little gem in an obscure book now and then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Postrow11 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

"Okus Pokus"?
The phrase Hokus Pokus could also be coming straight from the Croatian or Czech language. Okus pokus is translated as flavor test or tasting experiment - of food or clothes I guess.

The term pokus refers to different kinds of testing experiments in the Czech Wikipedia. 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 16 November 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Both moved as proposed despite some healthy back-and-forth below. Consensus is that WP:SMALLDETAILS still applies. Red  Slash  23:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

– Per WP:DIFFCAPS, the original phrase is the only one that is not a proper name. However, due to the origin of the phrase being the magician "Hocus Pocus", I am not opposed to making the disambig page Hocus Pocus (disambiguation) instead.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 02:23, 16 November 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. Steel1943  (talk) 02:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hocus pocus (magic) → Hocus-pocus
 * Hocus pocus → Hocus Pocus
 * Support. This is a bit more tidy.  I would not go with "Hocus Pocus (disambiguation)", since the original magician doesn't seem to be notable. (Even if he is and we just lack the article, it still would not be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.)  So, "Hocus Pocus" should be a disambiguation page and "Hocus pocus" a redirect to it.  I agree that when people write things like "It's just a bunch of hocus-pocus" that this is usually hyphenated (as are other reduplicative phrases in English, e.g. "Topless-schmopless, I'm neither thrilled nor offended by nude beaches", "I'm tired of your hinkum-dinkum", "Vegas shows still have a lot of razzle-dazzle", etc. See also childish euphemisms like "pee-pee", "poo-poo", "wee-wee", and so on.).  There's no "rule" about it I'm aware of in style guides, but the hyphenated style seems less likely to confuse people, especially non-native English speakers, who might be apt to go looking in vain in dictionaries for pseudo-words like "pocus", "schmopless", "dinkum", and "razzle".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:27, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose the first, support the second - at the time of the proposal the article has not even used "Hocus-pocus" once. The sources used in the article also use both. This is a just a move for move sake, making it seem like it's bypassing ambiguity, when it really isn't, and will result with needless confusion. --Gonnym (talk) 12:58, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Support both. The first suggestion recognizes the WP:Primary topic for the term. I'm not so sure whether the first move should have a hyphen or not, but I generally defer to SMcCandlish on such issues. The destination article should be the magic topic, regardless of whether the hyphen is included or not. The situation resembles Bird Box, G-Man and Friendly Fire as precedents. When lowercase, it is clearly the general concept, and with capitalization it may refer to one of various proper nouns and composition titles. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Why the hyphen in the first when a space will do? Why are proposing to capitalize the second? No indication of primary topic here.--Doug Mehus T · C  16:25, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Hold my nose and close my eyes Support for the 1st; Support to the 2nd without prejudice to renaming back to "Hocus pocus" (without leaving behind a redirect) if and when a conceivable, non-proper name article usage is added to the dab page, per my reply to below. --Doug Mehus  T · C  22:05, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The reason the second one is proposed to use a capital letter is that all of the topics (that use a space or hyphen) other than the meaning in magic are the titles of creative works that therefore use a capital letter for the second word. See the previous RMs for Bird Box, G-Man and Friendly Fire. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:30, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , True, but what does the WP:MOS say with regard to dab pages that also have non-proper name links on them? If it were just a dab page of proper names, then yes, I think this would be an easy support. Since you said has expertise on these stylistic matters, I'll re-ping him to clarify for me so I might consider changing my !vote. Doug Mehus  T · C  20:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , Looking again, I see the one I looked at was a German translation of the film, which isn't capitalized but that's a German-English translation thing. Still, what of the Wikitionary link to the generic usage? Doug Mehus T · C  20:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The DAB capitalizations question is not an MoS matter. Doesn't even seem to be covered at WP:DAB. It's just a WP:RM precedent issue, as far as I can tell: when almost all entries on a DAB page are capitalized proper names, we use the capitalized version as the DAB page title.  It's been that way for as long as I can remember, and Friendly Fire, etc., are in fact good examples. As for the hyphen, I don't care that much, but I've already covered in detail why the general English term hocus-pocus should be hyphenated.  In WP:P&G terms, it's more WP:CONSISTENT with treatment of similar reduplicative phrases in English. And it comports better with MOS:HYPHEN (things like hocus-pocus, razzle-dazzle, and hinkum-dinkum are substantive compounds).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , Thanks. I kind of disagree as I would normally write "hocus pocus". However, I'll modify my vote to a "weak oppose" to the first and a "support" to the second, with the proviso that should some non-proper name versions be added to the dab page, we rename it "Hocus pocus" again. Doug Mehus T · C  22:03, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, WP:DIFFCAPS is relevant, as noted above by Zxcvbnm, and WP:DAB has an example of Ice cube versus Ice Cube. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , So are you saying we could still have a Hocus pocus dab page focusing on the generic usages if Hocus pocus (the current dab page) is renamed to Hocus Pocus? If so, then yeah, okay, I'll remove my caveat above. I'm still not liking the hyphen in the first one, though (I like that the parenthetical qualifier is going away). Doug Mehus T · C  22:15, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we really don't need a parenthetical in there. As for "I would normally write ...", please remember that every single editor we have or ever will have would use that same idea to defy umpteen things in MoS and related guidelines (all the NC pages, etc.).  Our style guide and its dependents form a very hard-won compromise, between innumerable people with very strong opinions ingrained in them since elementary school (and often compounded by conflicting professional standards later). It was built with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears over a decade and half, a negotiated balance between every documented English-writing style. It is especially geared toward three things: A) formal, academic usage versus journalistic or other more casual writing; and B) maximum clarity for the largest number of readers, often at the expense of typographic expediency; and C) site-wide consistency that helps present WP as a unitary publication with a large editorial board rather than a pile of random bloggish text by a zillion individuals.  MOS:HYPHEN in particular has rules in it that in every single case would be habitually ignored in off-site writing by one subset or another of our editors (some of whom pretty much never use hyphens unless forced to, e.g. in a proper name like Danny John-Jules).  Our WP:RM record is pretty solid at inserting hyphens into compounds any time they are potentially useful to readers, and MOS:HYPHEN outlines categories (like substantive compounds, compound modifiers, etc.) in which the hyphenation is generally, as a class, going to be useful and without any counter cost in confusion to some other subset of readers.  Doing it doesn't even cost us a character, since a space and a hyphen take up the same room. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:32, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , True, but WP:CON notes consensus can change. Still, I recognize the difficulty in trying to get WP:HYPHEN. Fine, call, it a "close my eyes and hold my nose support" for the hyphen in #1. Doug Mehus T · C  22:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll loan you my lavender pomander. ;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , LOL! Doug Mehus T · C  23:15, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think it would be desirable to have two separate dab pages at Hocus pocus and Hocus Pocus, if that's what you meant. I think that would be confusing. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:41, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Right.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:35, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , This was an old reply...I think I said that when I didn't realize that the page(s) were already dab pages? --Doug Mehus T · C  00:51, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: The hodge-podge of comments here about razzle-dazzle and hinkum-dinkum may be just a mish-mash of mumbo-jumbo. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:56, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Not sure whether to day tsk-tsk or tut-tut!.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:38, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Holy moly. All this argle-bargle gives me the heebie-jeebies. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: and, I'm surprised  relisted this. There's clear consensus for this move. Only one person opposes the first move; the others unanimously support (one with his nose pinched on one of the moves) both moves. Doug Mehus  T · C  15:19, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree as the support for the first move was not unanimous, and this discussion has not been relisted yet to attempt to clarify and solidify consensus further ... Steel1943  (talk) 15:28, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , True, and I respect your decision, but I just rarely see move decisions relisted. Commonly, they're closed at the 7 day mark as "moved," "not moved," or "no consensus" as if editors are watching the log page like hawks. I just see this as a pretty non-controversial move. Any time you can essentially eliminate a parenthetical qualifier from a dab page is a good thing...I do disagree with the hyphen in the first one (I'd prefer just "Hocus pocus"), but like I said, I'm just holding my nose at that support. I'm confident a closure would've held up on a move review, if that was your concern.
 * Personally, I rarely see a need to relist, even once, since consensus can change at any time. If there were a groundswell of opposition to this move in a few months, they could propose a move back, or to something else, and it would be moved. I think editors discount WP:CCC too often yet it's arguably one of the most important guidelines. Doug Mehus T · C  16:10, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Meh. Re-listings have been more common over the last few years; they don't really "cost" us anything and they get a more solid consensus record. It's really up to the closer's discretion, especially since closers (admin or NA) tend to get "blamed" for a close someone doesn't like and wants to make drama about. Given the infrequency with which bad closures are actually overturned (respondents at WP:MR seem more interested in protecting closers' judgement reputations than in producing useful article titles), it's better to have a very clear consensus outcome than an iffy call.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:35, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Support both: WP:SMALLDETAILS are sufficient disambiguation, and the hyphenated version hocus-pocus appears to be more commonly used per Google Ngram Viewer. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Support both per nom and WP:DABNAME: "The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives" for the disambiguation page. -- Netoholic @ 19:16, 9 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.