AboutTed Nesbitt Expertise I have an interest in the meanings of words and phrases, as well as how and when they became part of the English language. I enjoy
researching idioms, colloquialisms, dialects, and obscurities of
all kinds. I prefer short questions on a particular subject, and
I will not accept lengthy research projects or term papers. NOTE: ALLEXPERTS CLAIMS THAT I TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN AND FROM LATIN TO ENGLISH. I DO NOT. ALLEXPERTS REFUSES TO DELETE THE LATIN-TO-ENGLISH SERVICE -- ONE THAT I DO NOT PROVIDE.
TRUST ME ON THIS: ALLEXPERTS IS WRONG. I DO NOT TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE. LOOK FOR A LANGUAGE EXPERT INSTEAD. ETYMOLOGY AND TRANSLATING SERVICES ARE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. ALLEXPERTS SHOULD KNOW THAT. ALLEXPERTS DOES NOT KNOW THAT. I HAVE TRIED FOR MANY YEARS TO GET THEM TO CHANGE. THEY WILL NOT. SORRY, BUT I DO NOT TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN.
Experience I am the bibliographic instruction and reference librarian at a public
college. My master's thesis concerns William Faulkner's tragic novels. I formerly taught advanced placement English at two schools in the Philadelphia area.
I have been a member of the grammar and writing section of Allexperts
for more than a year.
Education/Credentials Masters degrees in English, philosophy, and library science.
Question I am sorry you were not thanked for your previous hard work. I promise I will not treat you so unkind. I need to know the derivation of the English word "momick". I cannot find it any where and am in need of your expertise. Thanks you!
Answer Dear Joanie:
You promised to reply, so I have spent the last two hours trying to find the information for you. Since you indicate that you are from the U. S., some of the possible definitions and spellings MAY NOT APPLY.
The word appears as MOMICK, MOMMICK [most frequently], MOMOX, MOMMUCK, MOMMIX, and some other, older variations.
In the southern United States, it has two meanings: (1) to become confused or messed up; (2) to be harassed or torn up or extremely bothered.
These two examples are from "The Urban Dictionary" --
In eastern North Carolina, natives say "mommicked" to mean confused, messed up or fouled up.
When he hit the deer, Joe really mommicked his car good.
Tortured, ragged-out, destroyed. To harass or bother. From the true and original Down East. Derivative of mammock; to tear or botch up. Also spelled: mommuck
My Lord Honey, ain't I been momicked this night!
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The "Bible" of the world of word and phrase meanings is the 22-volume set, "The Oxford English Dictionary" or the OED. This work includes ALL entries in the English language, NOT just those in Great Britain. The first known usage in WRITTEN English was about the year 1529, when it was used to mean a "piece" or "shred." I am pasting in below, the complete reference from the OED, although this usage is probably NOT what you are thinking about:
A scrap or shred, a broken or torn piece. Also in extended use.
a1529 J. SKELTON Collyn Clout (1545) 654 Whan mammockes was your meate, With moldy brede to eate. 1607 T. WALKINGTON Optick Glasse 62 Small mammocks of stone..of the bignesse of dice. 1633 T. ADAMS Comm. 2 Peter I. v. 100 God regardeth not the mammockes of our sacrifices. a1640 J. DAY & H. CHETTLE Blind-beggar (1659) sig. C2v, Let me be torn into mammocks with wilde Bears if [etc.]. 1651 J. OGILBY Fables of Æsop (1665) 137 Their Masking Sutes are all in mamocks tore. a1722 E. LISLE Observ. Husb. (1752) 247 Large cattle..will make mammocks, that they will leave and not eat. 1828 SCOTT Fair Maid of Perth xxxiii, I say, cut him to mammocks upon the spot! 1839 T. HOOD Hood's Own 236, I haven't a rag or a mummock To fetch me a chop or a steak; I wish that the coats of my stomach Were such as my Uncle would take!. 1859 A. L. ELWYN Gloss. Supposed Americanisms 78 Mummock, though not common, is sometimes heard. Skelton has the substantive, mummocks [sic], that I have never heard. 1870 W. MORRIS Earthly Paradise II. III. 40 This gangrel thief thought fit to tread The grass to mammocks by my head! 1935 H. L. DAVIS Honey in Horn iii. 26 Each man singed a mammock of mutton on a stick and ate it in the empty tent.
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Finally, Harvard University's Belknap Press has been publishing "The Dictionary of American Regional English." It is not yet complete, but Volume III, having the words from I through O, is done.
Here is PART of the lengthy passage from that work.
1. A fragment or shard. [as in the Oxford dictionary]
2. A mess; a botch; and by extension, someone who makes a mess. [Chiefly from the Southern states] First used in 1867 by Harris in "Sut Lovingood Yarns," [Tennessee] -- "The nex tail fus' experishun wer made aginst the cati-corner'd cupboard, outen which he made a perfeck momox." In 1913, in Kephart's "Highlanders," [Southern Appalachia] there is this passage: "If the house be in disorder it is said to be all gormed or gaumed up, or things are just in a mommick."
So, Joanie, you can add two synonyms: gormed and gaumed up.
3. Something strange and distasteful. 1923, from Green-Petrie's "Angeline Doin' Society" there is this passage: "Hit looked like a great big red crawfeesh, and I hope to my die, if the thing didn't have laigs and claws on 'em, but . . . he gulped hit down like hit was nick nacks. That mommix Bob Bowles et had turned my stummick."
There are you choices, probably American, meaning "a mess" or "botched up" OR "something that LOOKS like a mess or a "creature," which is strange or distasteful.
Joanie, I typed the vernacular words, just as they are printed in the dictionaries. I have double-checked and all the misspelled words are "correctly misspelled."
