Hobson-Jobson

Meanings

1. Any Indian religious observance, especially the Muharram.
2. The assimilation of borrowed lexis, either partial or whole, to word forms of the borrowing language.
3. A word or phrase borrowed by one language from another and modified in pronunciation to fit the set of sounds the borrowing language typically uses.

1. Alternative letter-case form of Hobson-Jobson.

Etymology

Derived from adapting the call Hassan! Hussein! (حَسَن حُسَيْن (ḥasan ḥusayn), a lament for the grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad) to Hobson and Jobson, a pair of comic figures popular in the nineteenth century. Note that the conventional derivation from "Ya Hassan! Ya Hussein!" is incorrect. Coined in the linguistic sense by Yule and Burnell in their dictionary Hobson-Jobson.