Hobnobbing with Hemingway

October 7th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

“Hobnob” is a word you don’t hear much anymore, maybe because it has more pasts than presents.

It used to be a noun for “a friendly chat,” an adverb for “at random,” and a verb for “to drink together.” Webster’s gives all three the label “now rare.”

What has survived is “hobnob” as a verb for “to be on close terms (with someone); associate in a familiar way.”

So what does this have to do with Ernest Hemingway? I’m glad you asked.

The origin of the word is the Middle English “habben, ne habben” — literally, “to have and not have.”

Yes, film buffs, we have arrived at 1944 and the Howard Hawks movie “To Have and Have Not,” which paired Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, then 19, for the first time.

The script, which literary giant William Faulkner had a hand in, was loosely based on a book by Hemingway.

Other notables in the film were “Stardust” composer Hoagy Carmichael; three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan; and character actor Sheldon Leonard, better known as producer of four classic TV series: “The Danny Thomas Show,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “I Spy.”

Now that would have been a group to hobnob with.

Entry Filed under: word origins