law of Hobson-Jobson

Coined by Edward Ellis Morris; based on Hobson-Jobson.[1]

law of Hobson-Jobson

1. The "rule" that words or phrases borrowed between languages will be modified in their pronunciation as necessary to conform to the set of sounds used by the borrowing language.
   • 1898, Edward Ellis Morris, Austral English, page xv:

     In many places in the Dictionary, I find I have used the expression ‘the law of Hobson-Jobson.’ The name is an adaptation from the expression used by Col. Yule and Mr. Burnell as a name for their interesting Dictionary of Anglo-Indian words. The law is well recognised, though it has lacked a name, such as I now venture to give it.

   • 1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, chapter 8, in The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC, § 2, page 51:

     Its variations show a familiar effort to bring a new and strange word into harmony with the language—an effort arising from what philologists call the law of Hobson-Jobson.

   • 1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, chapter 50, in The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC, § 3, page 344:

     Reckawackes, by the law of Hobson-Jobson, was turned into Rockaway, and Pentapang into Port Tobacco.

   • 1921, John Stephen Farmer, s.v. "Tommy-axe", A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English Slang and Its Analogues, page 482

     Tommy-axe. A corruption of tomahawk: an instance of the law of Hobson-Jobson (q.v.).