Where did the word HUMBUG come from?

Question

as in doesnt like Christmas

Answer 1

The exclamationatory "Bah, humbug!" has become associated with Ebenezer Scrooge in the story book, A Christmas Carol and a dismissive attitude towards Christmas, characterizing the holiday itself as a fraud.

The phrase "Bah, humbug!" Was often used by Dickens' grandfather.

http://www.answers.com/topic/humbug?cat=health


Humbug: colloquially, a hoax, imposition, fraud, or sham (1751); used interjectionally to mean "stuff and nonsense" (1825); in slang, to deceive or cheat.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/xmas/pva116.html

Answer 2

HUMBUG. n. "A vast mass of villainy, that cannot be reached by legal penalties, or brought within the rhetoric of scorn, would go at large with absolute impunity, were it not through the stern Rhadamanthian aid of this virtuous and inexorable word." (From De Quincey who observed that neither German or Greek had equivalence in describing this attribute which reoccurs with frequence and has such social enormity. pp 71.)

Humbug is an expressive word, about the origin of which etymologists are disagreed. An ingenious explanation, not given in the dictionaries, is, that it is derived from Hume of the Bog, a Scotch laird, so called from his estate, who lived during the reign of William and Anne. He was celebrated in Edinburgh circles for his marvelous stories, which, in the exhausting draughts they made on his hearer's credulity, out-Munchausened Munchausen. Hence, any tough story was called "a regular Hume of the Bog," or, by contraction, Humbug. Another etymology of humbug is a piece of Hamburg news; i.e., a Stock Exchange canard. Webster derives the word from hum, to impose on, deceive, and bug, a frightful object, a bugbear. Wegwood thinks it may come from the union of hum and buzz, signifying sound without sense. He cites a catch, set by Dr. Arne in "Notes and Queries":

"Buz, quote the blue fly,
Hum, quoth the bee,
Buz and hum they cry,
and so do we. pp306.

Words Their Use and Abuse, William Mathews, S. C. Griggs and Company 1876.

Answer 3

Google it like Beach Saint.. he's google-genius!

Answer 4

It means to pester or annoy.

Answer 5

it's a types of sweet

Answer 6

a humming insect perhaps?

Answer 7

humbuggery