Bath.
[HUGGER-MUGGER, says Dr. Richardson, is the common way of writing this
word, from Udal to the present time. No probable etymology, he adds,
has yet been given. Sir John Stoddart (_Ency. Metropolitana_, vol i. p.
120.) has given a long article on this word, which concludes with the
following remarks:--"The last etymology that we shall mention is from
the Dutch title, {342} _Hoog Moogende_ (High Mightinesses), given to
the States-General, and much ridiculed by some of our English writers;
as in _Hudibras_:
'But I have sent him for a token
To your Low-country, _Hogen Mogen_.'
It has been supposed that _hugger-mugger_, corrupted from _Hogen
Mogen_, was meant in derision of the secret transactions of their
Mightinesses; but it is probable that the former word was known in
English before the latter, and upon the whole it seems most probable
that _hugger_ is a mere intensitive form of _hug_, and that _mugger_ is
a reduplication of sound with a slight variation, which is so common in
cases of this kind."]
_Balderdash._--What is the meaning and the etymology of "balderdash?"