My Magic Dad

My father was a magician. I don't mean that metaphorically. He actually had an interest in legerdemain that grew to the extent that he performed at children's parties as a sideline. He often used the words hocus pocus as magic words, but was careful to let everyone know that he was performing tricks, not magic. What's the difference? In his mind tricks are something that make you think one way only to have a different result. My favorite trick was the one where black and white wood bunnies changed places from one box to another. You'd think you figured out how he did the trick only for him to reveal the bunnies at the end of the trick as red and yellow. How he did it was always a secret, but it was also always entertaining. 

Magic (the word, not the activity) is defined as the art (I don't know that my dad considered himself an artist, though) of producing illusions. The word came to English in the 14th century from the French word magique, which came from the Latin word magicus, which they got from the Greek word magikos. (The adjectival and noun forms have a slightly different etymology, but these three words are common to both.) Magikos comes from magos, which was descriptive of someone who was a Priest or highly educated. My dictionary uses the word legerdemain as a synonym. 

Legerdemain, however, has a slightly different connotation. The word came to English in the early 15^th century from the Middle French phrase léger de main, which meant “quick of hand” (literally “light of hand”). Modern magical acts often have both the sleight of hand, the small tricks that legerdemain refer to – often card tricks – as well as large production tricks that have no sleight of hand, merely misdirection and mechanical secrets.

Prestidigitation is probably a word adopted by magicians. It is adopted directly from the French word with the same spelling, which was created by combining the French word for nimble, preste, with the Latin word for finger digitus. It came to English in 1843, and is related to the French word for juggler, prestigiateur. 

In my opinion prestigiditation would refer more to a juggling trick than sleight of hand. If many card tricks are legerdemain, perhaps the even more nimble coin tricks are examples of prestidigitation. In most usage they’re interchangeable.

So where does hocus pocus come in? Its origin isn’t certain, but according to some (etymonline attributes it initially to an English prelate named John Tillotson) it may be a  perversion of the phrase Hoc est corpus meum (This is my body) used in the Latin Mass during the sacrament of Eucharist.

I also like etymonline.com’s citation of another early usage:

I will speak of one man…that went about in King James his time…who called himself, the Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say Hocus Pocus, tontus tabantus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currently without discovery. [Thomas Ady, “A Candle in the Dark,” 1655]

One can easily imagine the art of magic, including legerdemain and prestidigitation (and even juggling) being entertainment in castles and city squares throughout France and England. Or at a Renaissance Faire today.