One might find "stodgy" in Dickens but the credit must go
farther back. In literary historical terms, Horace Horatio
Stodge (1812-1870) predated Charles Dickens by a good half
hour. While this could have been the precept for the
phrase, "beat the Dickens," it borders on the nearly
interesting for another reason. In his small span of life,
HHS was able to unceremoniously cement his place in near
oblivion while permanently affecting the King's English.
For it was Ol' Stodge, as he was known by those who knew
and avoided him, who lent his name to the language, after
having secured a note from the King's Counter guaranteeing
him 3% interest on the loan -- a tidy sum in those days
and HHS would having nothing to do with messy sums.
Although Dickens was well known for borrowing the
eccentricities of people he knew to build his well
articulated characters, use of the term "Stodgy" reflects
Dickens's flexibility, for the old boy that predated him by
half an hour was known precisely for having no noteworthy
character traits at all.
But the linguistic arrangement was well worth the price,
for it give us, in addition to the better known adjectival
attribution "stodgy," several variants including the
following"
To stodge -- infinitive -- 1) the act of placing precisely
x pounds of something, no more, no less, into a container
of that same capacity;
-- 2) to induce a profoundly deep but
unsatisfying sleep in one's audience
bestodged transitive verb -- to be appear indiscernibly
different when awake or asleep;
stodgehouse or stodgedom -- noun-- a place that is
extraordinarily unextraordinary. Example: Mr. Smithers is
no longer with us. He's gone to the big stodgehouse.
Although its currency in the American vernacular has waned
in modern times, it has recently been taken up by science
in the field of psycho-optics:
stodgeoscopic -- adjective -- being invisible against a
background, such as wallpaper, except when moving.
s-todge h-ouse
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