Bogeyman
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The bogeyman, also boogeyman, boogyman, or bogyman, is a ghost-like monster that children often believe is real.
The bogeyman has no specific appearance. He is sometimes equated with specific real-life persons, such as serial killer Albert Fish.
Sometimes parents will, as a way of controlling their children, encourage belief in a bogeyman that only preys on children who misbehave. Such bogeymen may be said to target a specific transgression—for instance, a bogeyman that persecutes children who suck their thumbs—or just general misbehaviour.
It is said that the Bogeyman takes the shape and form of a child's worst fear in order to feed on them. The Bogeyman is sometimes said to be neither woman nor man, and is in the form of a shadowy figure when it is not so readily to scare a more difficult child.
The term "bogeyman" is also used metaphorically to mean a person or thing of which someone else has an irrational fear.
Popular portrayals of Bogeymen include Victor Herbert's 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, where they lived unsurprisingly in Bogeyland and Raymond Briggs' Fungus the Bogeyman. The latter relies on the British children's slang word bogey meaning snot or boogers, a substance these particular bogeymen are particularly fond of.
The etymology of the word "bogeyman" is uncertain. It first appeared in the English language around 1836 as a term for the Devil, although the roots of it might ultimately derive from the Middle English bugge, meaning a "frightening spectre". Similar deriviations include boggart, bogy, bugbear, the Welsh bwg and the German bögge, all referring to goblins or frightening creatures. "Bogey" may also come from the Scottish bogle, meaning "ghost", dating to around 1505 and popularised in English literature around the 19th century through the works of Scottish poets like Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.
Other origins claimed for the term include it being a reference to Napoleon Bonaparte, who was nicknamed "Bogey" by the British, or it being derived from the Bugis people of Indonesia, feared pirates who preyed on shipping in the Straits of Malacca. According to this latter theory, European sailors who encountered them took their tales back to the Old World, telling stories of the "bugismen" to scare their children into behaving.
See also
- Boogeyman - A 2005 horror film.
- The Bogie Man - a comic book about an insane Scotsman who thinks he's Humphrey Bogart
External links
- The Bogeyman of Earthquake Prediction (http://geology.about.com/library/weekly/aa030903a.htm) (an example of the metaphorical use of "bogeyman")
- Napoleon.org - fun stuff (http://www.napoleon.org/en/fun_stuff/dico/index.asp) (describing the origins of the term 'bogeyman' - an English reference to the infamous diminuitive Corsican conqueror)
- Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bogey) - entry for "bogey".
- The Word Detective (http://www.word-detective.com/030201.html#bogeyman)
- Encylopedia Mythica (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/bogeyman.html) - cites "Bugis" origin for "bogeyman".fi:Boogeyman