Kara from Rockwood, Tennessee, asks about boogeyman after hearing in Port-au-Prince that the word came from a Haitian slave-revolt leader named Bokman. That story is unlikely, because related words are older than the revolt that led to Haiti’s freedom. Bogey, boggart, bogle, goblin, hobgoblin, and boogeyman all belong to a loose family of terms for vague demons, imps, or dark things that might get you. The deeper origin is uncertain, with possible roots in Welsh and in older Celtic and Anglo-Saxon material from the British Isles. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Did “Boogeyman” Come from “Bokman”? The Timeline Says No”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Kara Foster from Rockwood, Tennessee.
Well, hi, Kara.
Hello, welcome to the program.
Well, I have this question my husband and I have been wondering about. I’d like to know where we get the notion of the boogeyman.
Oh, the notion or the term for it?
Well, the term for it. What’s the history behind that, if you know any of that? Where did people start picking up the boogeyman will get you? That’s something I grew up hearing.
And why were you and your husband talking about it?
Well, I think I have an idea from some traveling about where it came from. Somebody once told me, this person told me while I was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, I was looking at a statue of one of the slave leaders, and someone told me that the expression, the boogeyman, comes from him, his name being Bokman, I think. And he started with one of the leaders in the slave revolt that led to Hades freedom.
I hadn’t even heard that one.
Yeah, I haven’t heard that either. What year would that be? Do you remember?
I think probably late 1700s, close to 1800s.
Sounds a little late, doesn’t it?
Yeah, it’s late. There are a wide variety of terms that are like bogeyman, bogeyman, bogey, boggart. Actually, if you know the Harry Potter stories, you know what a boggart is, right?
Right.
There are a wide variety of terms that are all very similar, one syllable or two syllable. Bogle, bogey, boggart, bogey, bogeyman, bogeyman, they’re all probably related. They all have these generally negative contexts. A lot of them are used to refer to some vague, mysterious demon or imp or some kind of evil in the darkness that you don’t really know about this thing that might somehow get you.
And it’s usually pretty ill-defined, although you do find it pop up with a lot of terrifying description and folktales and folk stories. There’s some speculation that it goes back to some Welsh words and perhaps that the roots of this lie in the deepest parts of the Celtic and the Anglo-Saxon origins of some of the British dialects of the British Isles.
I think it’s important to note that we have this group of words with the B and the G sounds, and even hobgoblin fits into this, and goblin itself. A lot of these words have these same sounds, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find that somewhere along the way they’re all related to the thing that might get you in the dark, that preyed upon people. I don’t know.
So, Kira, bottom line is we don’t know, but we know it’s earlier than the revolt in Haiti.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, well, thanks. You’ve cleared up something, though. It’s good to know.
Yeah, sometimes that’s all we can do.
Yeah, well, thank you.
Well, thanks a lot.
Our pleasure, Kira. And be good because you know who will get you if you don’t.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Okay, bye-bye.
Okay, bye.
Well, if there’s a word that’s tickled your curiosity, we’d love to hear about it. 1-877-929-9673. Or you can ask us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.
