Talk:hiccup

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Latest comment: 16 years ago by Stephen G. Brown
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I would have said hiccough was the correct English spelling, but then I may be showing my age ;) In addition, are both ways of spelling homophones, or is there some subtlety of pronunciation I'm not aware of? Interesting to note that a little Googling suggests that etymologically Hiccough resulted from a mix-up with Cough. trunkie 15:11, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)


Appropriately enough, there have been several hiccups in the editing of this page. I inadvertently added definitions for hiccup to hiccups and PaulG and I tried to fix it at the same time. I think it's sorted now.

I removed "confirm US pt and ppt", not noticing the spelling difference. I believe that either spelling is OK in the US, similar to focused/focussed, but this needs to be confirmed. I'll note.

How "hiccough" came to be pronounced "hiccup" will have to remain a mystery for now, along with the pronunciation of "lieutenant".

—This unsigned comment was added by Dmh (talkcontribs) 17:17, 15 March 2004.

It's the other way around. Hiccup was the original spelling, and hiccough is but a folk etymology ("a mere error," according to the Oxford English Dictionary). JackLumber 23:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Reply


So I read this newspaper columnist talking about word frequency charts in wiktionary pages (SF Chronicle, today, but I'm not getting that website to load now to link to it). Why doesn't hiccup get a rank? A "hiccup" in the process? --Eli the Bearded 00:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

This is the column: Jon Carroll 20 Aug 2007
Because the ranks are only shown for the top 1000 words. Robert Ullmann 17:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Reply
I have a list of the first 7,500 words, and hiccup/hiccough does not appear there, either. —Stephen 18:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Reply