Bewitched, bothered, and bedeviled

From Chris Waigl, this 2/10/14 cartoon by wordplayer Scott Hilburn:


The Exorcist, the novel and the film; and deviled eggs, the hors d’oeuvres, picnic food, or party food, very popular in the US.

The Exorcist. From Wikipedia:


The Exorcist is a 1973 American supernatural horror film adapted by William Peter Blatty from his 1971 novel of the same name, directed by William Friedkin, and starring Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, and Jason Miller. The film is part of The Exorcist franchise. The book, inspired by the 1949 exorcism of Roland Doe, follows the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother’s attempts to win her back through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The adaptation is relatively faithful to the book, which itself has been commercially successful

adj. devilled | deviled. From OED3 (June 2017):

†1. Possessed or tormented by a devil or evil spirit. Obsolete.

2. Of food, esp. meat or nuts: prepared with spicy seasonings or condiments such as pepper, paprika, or mustard, and (often) grilled or fried. Also: designating a spicy sauce, butter mixture, etc., used in such a dish or as a condiment. … The earliest use of devilled in this sense has been attributed to James Boswell …, but this attribution has not been substantiated. [1st cite 1796; cites for a deviled biscuit, a devil’d kidney, devilled chicken, devilled bones, devilled sauce, devilled almonds, devilled kidneys]


devilled eggs  n. (also occasionally in singular) eggs prepared with spicy seasonings (see sense 2); (chiefly N. Amer.) a dish typically consisting of hard-boiled eggs, halved, in which the yolks are removed, mashed with mayonnaise, mustard, etc., and spooned or piped back into the hollowed whites, and the whole is dusted with paprika. [1st cite 1854; 1st specialized N. Amer. cite 1871]

2 Responses to “Bewitched, bothered, and bedeviled”

  1. Chris Waigl (@chrys) Says:

    We had deviled eggs often at home in Germany at festive meals. Called Russische Eier in German, at least in my grandmother’s nomenclature. She used a product called Remoulade (which came in a squeeze tube), which I understand to be mostly mayonnaise with some extra spices already in it. Mixed it into the egg yolks, added chopped pickles I think…

  2. Robert Coren Says:

    Your title inexorably reminds me of the three bats in Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip, whose names were Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred. (I discovered relatively late in life that “Bemildred” originated as a mishearing of “Bewildered” by Deacon Mushrat, but apparently was accepted by whichever bat it was — as I recall, the bats themselves were unable to remember which of them was which.)

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