英语词汇humbug的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

humbug. Humbug, a fraud or hoax, has long outlived those purists who so vehemently attacked the word when it entered the language from underworld slang in the 1750s. No one is sure just where humbug came from. Several authorities suggest the Irish uim bog, “soft copper,” referring to the debased money with which James II flooded England from the Dublin mint. But bug in its slang sense had meant to cheat or “sting” before humbug was coined, and in former times people expressed ap- probation, perhaps even false encouragement, by humming. Then again, since the original meaning of bug is “bogey,” a humbug may first have been a really harmless bug that hums and frightens us. Dickens’s Scrooge with his “Bah, humbug!” gave the word great popularity worldwide, as did P. T. Barnum, “the Prince of Humbug.”

词汇	humbug
词源	humbug. Humbug, a fraud or hoax, has long outlived those purists who so vehemently attacked the word when it entered the language from underworld slang in the 1750s. No one is sure just where humbug came from. Several authorities suggest the Irish uim bog, “soft copper,” referring to the debased money with which James II flooded England from the Dublin mint. But bug in its slang sense had meant to cheat or “sting” before humbug was coined, and in former times people expressed ap- probation, perhaps even false encouragement, by humming. Then again, since the original meaning of bug is “bogey,” a humbug may first have been a really harmless bug that hums and frightens us. Dickens’s Scrooge with his “Bah, humbug!” gave the word great popularity worldwide, as did P. T. Barnum, “the Prince of Humbug.”
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