There seem to be numerous emails and frequent news items about people, especially seniors, being hoodwinked by fake phone calls impersonating a relative needing financial support for a serious emergency. CBC News recently published an article stating that according to computer security expert Jonathan Anderson, "You can clone someone's voice, and given the ability to do that, it's not at all surprising that somebody would do that for nefarious purposes."
Hoodwink means to deceive. Although originally entering the English language in the 1560s, it meant to blindfold or blind by covering the eyes. The word was a compound of the words hood and wink. Hood, from the Old English hod, was a soft covering for the head, usually extending over the back of the neck, and often attached to a garment. The original meaning of wink was to close one’s eyes, not to shut one eye briefly as a signal. So, a highwayman who pulled the hood over a victim’s eyes to effectively close them, was said to hoodwink his victim. A 1562 Roman Catholic treatise on private masses stated, “Will you enforce women to hoodwink themselves in the church?” This implies that a woman who would attend a private mass might be blindfolded to not observe the rite and keep it private. Community fairs were places of wonder and dastardly deeds. Like today, pickpockets were always on the lookout for victims in large crowds. A favourite technique was to pull the victim's hood over his eyes while cutting his purse-strings, to hoodwink them.
In the early 17th century, hoodwink assumed its figurative sense. Hoodwink started to mean to blindfold mentally, to prevent someone from seeing the truth. In 1610 John Healey translated Augustine’s The City of God with the phrase, “Let not the faithlesse therefore hood-winck them-selues in the knowledge of nature.” “The public ... is as easily hood-winked,” wrote the Irish physician Charles Lucas in 1756. This sense of veiling the truth has continued to the present time.
Wealthy British of the 17th and 18th centuries were fond of wearing woollen wigs. Brigands would often tug their victims' hairpieces down over their faces, hoodwinking them, the more easily to relieve them of their moneybag. Hence the expressions to hoodwink and to pull the wool over one's eyes became synonymous. So, today people who have been hoodwinked are those who have had the wool pulled over their eyes.
You may have heard the term bamboozle, as a synonym for hoodwink. You’ve just been bamboozled! This word dates from the early 1700s but no one knows its true origin. Some trace bamboozle to the Scottish bumbaze, meaning to confuse or mystify. While 1920s etymologist Ernest Weekley suggested it comes from the French embabuiner, meaning to make one as a baboon, to look foolish.
Hornswoggled appears to have originated in the southern United States in the early 19th century. An 1829 issue of The Virginia Literary Magazine in its glossary of Americanisms states that hornswoggle came from Kentucky. Many words with meanings like hoodwink, are regional oddities of Americanisms, such as sockdolager, absquatulate, callithump, slumgullion, and honeyfuggle, as colourful ways to say to deceive.
Try to avoid getting hoodwinked by many advertising claims, as the truth can be manipulated to get you to buy things that don’t provide what they claim or that you really don’t need.
Be careful with those phone calls claiming to be a loved one needing help for they could be a scam. Don’t let the bad guys hoodwink you.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com . Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
