Reader question:
There's a website called "Hocus Pocus: Harry Potter Website". Does hocus pocus mean magic?
My comments:
Yes, it does.
In addition to musical, hocus-pocus sounds magical, doesn't it? And the word does originate from the world of magic playing in Medieval Europe.
In the dictionary I have at hand, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, hocus-pocus is defined this way: "a method or belief that you think is based on false ideas: He thinks psychology is a load of hocus-pocus."
I'm afraid this explanation isn't as interesting as the sounding of the word itself. But then again, the dictionary I mentioned is a dictionary for beginners. One can't expect much from it when it comes to such an interesting word as hocus-pocus.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary online, on the other hand, gives a more detailed explanation: "1. sleigh of hand. 2. nonsense or sham used especially to cloak deception." And it gives etymology (word origin): "probably from hocus pocus, imitation of a Latin phrase used by jugglers".
This explanation gets to the nitty-gritty of hocus-pocus – exotic but meaningless talk by the magician to hoodwink the audience. Watch any magician at work and we'll notice that he sometimes talks incessantly while performing tricks, using hocus-pocus (ear-catching words, eye-catching hand/body movements) to distract our attention while he gets a trick done.
【Hocus pocus?】相关文章:
★ 小学英语Unit1 We visited lots of places教学设计
最新
2020-09-15
2020-08-28
2020-08-21
2020-08-19
2020-08-14
2020-08-12