words wholly unrelated

[what the] dickens & [charles] dickens

“what the dickens” has long been the catchphrase of my parole officer. i always assumed it had something to do with charles dickens and was some whacky victorian euphemism—the way saying jiminy christmas is a way of not saying jesus christ. it turns out that “what the dickens” predates charles dickens and the victorian era by several centuries. if i had actually read shakespeare’s the merry wives of windsor instead of pretending to read it, i would have come across the phrase in act iii, scene ii.

most people in the know agree that “what the dickens” is a minced oath for “what the devil.” though the relation between dickens and the devil is obscure, some etymologists say it derives from devilkins.

in an effort to ensure that the surname dickens doesn’t come from devilkins, i conducted some research on the last name itself. dickens means “the grandson of richard” (literally “the son of dick’s kin).” and is an example of a double patronymic surname. interestingly, the surname dickinson is rare case of a triple patronymic surname and means “richard’s great-grandson.”

dick
dicken (dick + kin)
dickens (dick + kin + s(on))
dickinson (dick + kin + s(on) + (s)on)!