A barrister friend wrote to ask me what the origin of the word pettyfogger is - a word associated with members of his profession. Here we have a contemptuous designation for a lawyer of low class; a person given to underhanded practices. The term appears as early as 1577 in Harrison's England, where `brushes betweene the pettie foggers of the lawes and the common people' is mentioned.
As to fogger, its origin is Fugger, the surname of a renowned family of merchant bankers who flourished in Augsburg in the 15th and 16th centuries. The word was absorbed into many European languages. In 1607 Middleton in his Five Gallants refers to `my little German fooker.' Spanish has fucar, a contemptuous word for a man of wealth: German has fugger, focker and, saving your presence, fucker: in Modern Dutch the term rijke fokker is applied to an avaricious man of wealth. The Sussex dialect word fogger, meaning huckster, came into being through ironical use, I suppose.
Mrs Jane Reveley of Warnham, Sussex, writes to ask if there is a difference between a bull and an Irish bull. Her query was prompted by an Elizabeth Barrett Browning quip about Irish bulls.
Well now, a bull is an absurd and amusing mistake in language, especially, but not necessarily, one that is self-contradictory, such as `If you don't get this letter, write and let me know.' The word is of uncertain origin, but you might compare Middle English bull, a falsehood, Old French, boule, trickery, Icelandic bull, nonsense. Bull was in use long before Edgeworth's 1802 Essay on Irish Bulls associated it with Irishmen: but blunders of the `Oops! I wish I hadn't written that' variety should be regarded as bulls, as they would have been pre-Edgeworth (for example Jane Austen's `Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen appearances were mending. She began to cut her hair and long for balls' in Northanger Abbey). One of the smarties who laughed at Irish bulls was a lady who wrote this about herself: `No woman was happier in her choice - no woman. And after above two months of uninterrupted intercourse there is still more and more cause for thankfulness. He loves me better every day, he says. My health improves too.' Who wrote that? Why, the newly-married Mrs E.B. Browning herself, would you believe.