hugger-mugger

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Klimt
Lexiterian
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Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2007 12:25 pm

hugger-mugger

Postby Klimt » Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:47 am

hugger-mugger
[huhg-er-muhg-er]

1. disorder or confusion; muddle.
2. secrecy; reticence: Why is there such hugger-mugger about the scheme?

Most chillingly, Walsh's 2000 play, Bedbound, depicted a young woman who has polio living hugger-mugger with her flamboyant father, in a space little bigger than a double bed.
Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

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Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
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Postby Slava » Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:03 pm

1520–30; earlier hucker-mucker, rhyming compound based on mucker, ME mokeren to hoard
Dictionary.com Unabridged

This would seem to make the second meaning the one based on the origins. I'm none too clear on how the 1st one would have come about. Anyone care to track that one down for us?
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


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