According to the BBC quiz show QI, in the episode "Hocus Pocus", muggle was a 1930s jazz slang word for someone who uses cannabis. "Muggles" is the title of a 1928 recording by Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra. A muggle is, according to Abbott Walter Bower, the author of the Scotichronicon, "an Englishman's tail". In Alistair Moffat's book A History of the Borders from Early Times, it is stated that there was a widely held 13th-century belief amongst Scots that Englishmen had tails.Alistair Moffat, The Borders: a history of the Borders from earliest times, 2002, Deerpark Press, , pp.211-212 Ernest Bramah referred to "the artful Muggles" in a detective story published decades before the Potter books ("The Ghost at Massingham Mansions", in The Eyes of Max Carrados, Doran, New York, 1924). Muggles is the name of a female character in the children's book The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall published in 1959 by Harcourt, Brace & World. Published in 1982, Roald Dahl's character the Big Friendly Giant uses the word "Muggled" while describing a good dream to the other main character, Sophie - “And the whole school is then cheering like mad and shouting bravo well done, and, for ever after that, even when you is getting your sums all gungswizzled and muggled up, Mr. Figgins is always giving you ten out of ten and writing Good Work Sophie in your exercise book.” – The BFG. Roald Dahl also names a family of monkeys "The Muggle-Wumps" in The Twits and other works. Muggle was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003, where it is said to refer to a person who is lacking a skill. Muggle is used in informal English by members of small, specialised groups, usually those that consider their activities to either be analogous to or directly involve magic (such as within hacker culture;Jargon File: muggle and pagans, magicians, Neopagans and Wiccans)Faith von Adams, "I Roomed with a Muggle", New Witch Magazine, Issue 5 (Fall 2003) pg. 34 to refer to those outside the group. Muggle (or geomuggle) is used by geocachers to refer to those not involved in or aware of the sport of geocaching. A cache that has been tampered with by non-participants is said to be plundered or muggled.
According to the BBC quiz show QI, in the episode "Hocus Pocus", muggle was a 1930s jazz slang word for someone who uses cannabis. "Muggles" is the title of a 1928 recording by Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra. A muggle is, according to Abbott Walter Bower, the author of the Scotichronicon, "an Englishman's tail". In Alistair Moffat's book A History of the Borders from Early Times, it is stated that there was a widely held 13th-century belief amongst Scots that Englishmen had tails.Alistair Moffat, The Borders: a history of the Borders from earliest times, 2002, Deerpark Press, , pp.211-212 Ernest Bramah referred to "the artful Muggles" in a detective story published decades before the Potter books ("The Ghost at Massingham Mansions", in The Eyes of Max Carrados, Doran, New York, 1924). Muggles is the name of a female character in the children's book The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall published in 1959 by Harcourt, Brace & World. Published in 1982, Roald Dahl's character the Big Friendly Giant uses the word "Muggled" while describing a good dream to the other main character, Sophie - “And the whole school is then cheering like mad and shouting bravo well done, and, for ever after that, even when you is getting your sums all gungswizzled and muggled up, Mr. Figgins is always giving you ten out of ten and writing Good Work Sophie in your exercise book.” – The BFG. Roald Dahl also names a family of monkeys "The Muggle-Wumps" in The Twits and other works. Muggle was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003, where it is said to refer to a person who is lacking a skill. Muggle is used in informal English by members of small, specialised groups, usually those that consider their activities to either be analogous to or directly involve magic (such as within hacker culture;Jargon File: muggle and pagans, magicians, Neopagans and Wiccans)Faith von Adams, "I Roomed with a Muggle", New Witch Magazine, Issue 5 (Fall 2003) pg. 34 to refer to those outside the group. Muggle (or geomuggle) is used by geocachers to refer to those not involved in or aware of the sport of geocaching. A cache that has been tampered with by non-participants is said to be plundered or muggled.