June 30, 2007

Japanese muggles ...

When a page editor handed in a section with a Tokyo-datelined Agence France-Presse story headlined 'Japanese muggles out in force for Harry Potter premiere,' what dawned on just at the moment was that a Japanese was muggling... Not reading any of the Harry Potter books was at the source of the inference.

The word in the Oxford English Dictionary has found a new meaning: 'muggle, n. In the fiction of J[oanne] K[athleen] Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way,' or simply a non-wizard. That makes a good play on the word in the headline.

The entry in the OED already has some definitions --- a 12th-century Kentish word for a tail resembling that of a fish (muggles heo hafden, they all had little muggles); a 16th-century word for a young woman or a sweetheart (Oh the parting of vs twaine, Hath causde me mickle paine, and I shall nere be married, Vntill I see my muggle againe); and a 1930s word for marijuana, or marijuana cigarette, used frequently in plural, hence muggle-head, a marijuana smoker.

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