CULTURE WATCH : There’s Meaning in That Gibberish

Abracadabra! Hocus Pocus! Eeeny, meeny, miney, moe. Where do these mystical incantations come from?

* Abracadabra: This well-worn verbal charm, used so often by today’s magicians, started out by being, well . . . worn. During the early Christian era, abrasadabra, perhaps derived from the Hebrew words ab (father), ben (son) and ruach acadash (holy spirit), was the holiest word of the Gnostic cult. The word’s letters were arranged on parchment in an inverted pyramid and the parchment was folded into the shape of a cross. Worn around the neck, this talisman was thought to ward off disease or trouble.

* Hocus Pocus: Most people believe that this phrase is a mocking corruption of the Latin words of the Eucharist, hoc est corpus (“this is my body”), but some experts cite a 17th-Century English magician called Hocus Pocus or the Norwegian phrase hokuspokus filiokus as possible sources. It’s likely that hocus pocus inspired our words hokey (contrived) and hoax (trick).

* Eeeny, meeny, miney, moe: This children’s counting game has been traced all the way back to the rituals of the ancient Druids, who may have used this incantation to determine who would be offered for human sacrifice. These syllables have been found in children’s counting games everywhere, from Germany ( Ene meme mu ) to India ( Een, meen sahri, harhe, teen ).