Extract from Crossed Wires BIG 188
With all the coughing and sneezing going on in the office, I looked into the origins of these words, and found that cough comes from German keuchen ‘to pant’ and wheeze from Old Norse hvaesa ‘to hiss’.
Hiccup, once called hicket or hyckock, is named after the sound of the hiccup. It was previously known by the Old English aelfsogoda because hiccups were once thought to be caused by elves.
Reader Merle Ellis recently queried our spelling of hiccup, because she thought it should be spelled hiccough. Both spellings are correct, but the latter came about by being mistakenly associated with ‘cough’.
Hiccup has a secondary meaning, a temporary setback. To cough it up also means to own up or to pay up.
To sneeze at, as well as saying atishoo, also means to regard as of little value.
