I first came across it some time in the 1960's in an anthology of comic verse. A search turns up http://www.coldspur.com/reviews/hogamous-higamous/ which tentatively ascribes it to William James (brother of Henry James): apparently one of his academic investigations during the 1880's involved inhaling laughing gas and other psychotropic agents, while recording the resulting philosophical insights for critical evaluation when sober. It is also suggested that Bertrand Russell may have had a hand in its dissemination to posterity. One way and another, quite a respectable pedigree! WFL On 4/1/16, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
Btw, I was certain that this is a takeoff on a rhyme *written by Aldous Huxley*, having long ago read some non-fiction by or about him that stated he made this up as a schoolboy. So googled to confirm this.
But the Internet mainly thinks the origin of this is undetermined (just google on hogamous, higamous). After probably close to 10 minutes of googling I found *one* hit where someone said it was by Aldous Huxley — the others didn't even mention him as a candidate.
And that hit was just a comment by someone in a discussion group, no citation.
Do you, Fred, or anyone else, know the origin of
Hogamous, higamous, Man is polygamous. Higamous, hogamous, Woman monogamous.
?
—Dan
On Apr 1, 2016, at 8:23 AM, Simon Plouffe <simon.plouffe@gmail.com> wrote:
Hogamous, higamous, Plouffe is polygammous. Higamous, hogamous, Gosper monogammous.
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