Word: hocus-pocus
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...platform with as much alacrity as the directors of the party outside. Delegates are to be chosen shortly; then in May will come the march to New Lecture Hall, which will do very well for a convention hall, and the battle proper begins. There is no mystery, gentlemen, no hocus-pocus; every issue plainly before your eyes, every candidate offered for what he is worth. The college side-show serves to whet the appetite while the main tent is being prepared. But the pungency of the 1924 performance is lacking this year. Houston may watch a real struggle: New Lecture...
...obvious fact connected with the matter is that people will not be awed into belief by such hocus-pocus proceedings. It looks like a clear case for competent and disinterested physicians to investigate...
...window. In cordwainer (still the legal designation of shoemaker) we are pointed to the fact that the people of Cordova made the best leather-a fame to which Morocco succeeded-hence Cordovannier, cordonnier, cordwainer. Cant perpetuates a sneer against the monks who did no work but singing-cantabant, Hocus-pocus again satirizes their ignorance, and also contains a sly Protestant laugh at the Catholic mystery of transubstantiation-hoc est corpus. That wigs were originally a French fashion is plain enough in the word itself-first corrupted from perruque to periwig, and then contracted for convenience to wig. Chouse...
...quite at liberty to publish this letter, - indeed, I hope you will do so, for I am anxious to explain 'my' system to any one who thinks either that it differs materially from that of other instructors or that it is a sort of hocus-pocus...