benignant

EF Benson, who looks like he was pretty benignant

If you’re thinking that ‘benignant’ sounds like it’s just stepped off the set of a Victorian drama wearing a waistcoat and holding a pocket watch, then you’d be right. I read it in a ghost story by one EF Benson, who was born in 1867. You might have already guessed that it’s the opposite of ‘malignant’ – it means kind, gentle or benevolent.

Benignant comes from the Latin word ‘benignus’, which is a mash-up (or compound) of ‘bene’ meaning ‘well’ or ‘good’, and ‘gignere’ meaning ‘to beget’ or ‘to produce’. So it’s basically about creating goodness, generating kindness or radiating a beneficent glow. Which makes a change in today’s shitty world, doesn’t it?

Interestingly (to me, at least), ‘benignus’ didn’t just mean ‘nice’ in Latin. It also carried a sense of generosity and nobility, so it was often applied to rulers, gods or generally all-round nice guys. It arrived in English via Old French in the early 17th century, alongside its more popular sibling, ‘benign’.

So why did ‘benign’ stick around while ‘benignant’ got assigned to obscure Victorian ghost stories? Well, ‘benignant’ generally leaned towards describing people, actions or attitudes, while ‘benign’ became the go-to for describing things that aren’t out to kill you (think moles and weather). Not to be cynical, but maybe there just aren’t enough nice people around to make ‘benignant’ more popular…?

Margaret – all that Egyptology sadly didn’t raise a smile

I referred to EF Benson as an obscure writer above, which is a little unfair. Well a lot unfair, actually – he was a prolific English author whose literary output included over 90 works, ranging from sharp social comedies to chilling ghost stories (the one I read was called ‘The Room in the Tower and Other Stories’). Benson was born into a pretty well-to-do family (his dad was the fricking Archbishop of Canterbury), and studied archaeology at Cambridge before turning to writing. He was a keen sportsman and also gay (a combination which sadly still isn’t accepted today), and his books are famed for their dry wit and camp humour. He was also the mayor of Rye in Sussex, which inspired the fictional town of Tilling in his most famous novels. His siblings were pretty cool too – Robert Hugh was another prolific author and Arthur Christopher wrote the words to ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Let’s take a moment to appreciate his sister, Margaret (who apparently only got one name, unlike her brothers #patriarchy) though. She was one of the first women to be admitted to Oxford University and went on to become a keen amateur Egyptologist, excavating lots of super-cool stuff, and later writing about it. In fact, her writing and lectures are credited with making Egyptology much more accessible to the general public.

hocus-pocus

Hocus-pocus is a noun used to describe magic or sleight of hand, often in a derogatory sense (as in ‘the saleperson did some kind of hocus-pocus and now I own a cow’). But did you know that actually, using it might get you struck by lightning/sent straight to hell (if you believe in that type of thing, of course)? That’s because some people believe it’s a corruption (or a perversion if you’re feeling particulary angry) of the phrase ‘Hoc est enim corpus meum’ or ‘This is my body’ which is used in Catholic masses for the Eucharist. GASP. This connection was first made in 1694 (which shows how old the word is) by John Tillotson, who was only the bloody Archbishop of Canterbury. He said this is one of his sermons:

“In all probability those 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.”

Despite this, there isn’t any real evidence to prove that 17th-century conjurers were actively trying to commit blasphemy or sentence themselves to eternal damnation. It’s more likely that hocus-pocus is just a couple of rhyming nonsense words put together that magicians incorporated into their patter to help them misdirect their audiences.

There’s also a theory that we get the word ‘hoax’ from the ‘hocus’ of ‘hocus pocus’, which was itself used on its own to mean ‘to play a trick on, to trick (someone)’ or, randomly, ‘to stupefy (someone) with drugged liquor ( … to steal from them)’ (from Wiktionary).