Original script/version:

“Another was I was taught to get rid of the hiccups was to eat apple sauce or drink water from a cup while hanging upside down.”

“I must have gotten the hiccups often when I was younger because I have so many way for getting rid of them. Both of these suggestions came from my best friend. We were both 12 at the time, I think. We were hanging out at her house and I had a case of the hiccups. First she suggested eating apple sauce. I did, and it didn’t work. Then she suggested drinking water upside down. I don’t know if the water actually helped or I was so distracted by the whole process that I forgot about my hiccups. I have used apple sauce since then and it has stopped my hiccups.”

“I sometimes wonder if these techniques are successful only because of the placebo effect. Because I believe they will get rid of my hiccups, my hiccups stop.”

Eating foods is not a bad guess for stopping the hiccups. Because hiccups originate in the diaphragm, it is only logical that the first attempts to cure them would be directed at the chest. Drinking water inverted could be a way to change someone’s breathing pattern, or the more forceful swallowing action required to drink water upside down could also account for the effectiveness of this folklore remedy.

Cure for Hiccups

To cure hiccups take a heaping spoonful of sugar.

The informant was not sure why this particular cure works, but it was passed on to her from her mother, and has, additionally, been passed on to me.  All of us claim that this remedy really works.

I’ve found that this remedy does in fact work for me, but I don’t know why.  There are many cures for hiccups, but I suppose maybe this one is circulating in my family because, not only does it actually work as a sweet solution, but Mary Poppins is a classic childhood film in my family.  I always remember watching it and loving the song about sugar helping the medicine go down.  So perhaps, this idea as sugar being equated with medicine was adapted into my family as a hiccup remedy, though I’m not quite sure.

Cure for Hiccups

To cure hiccups, one spoonful of malt vinegar.

According to the informant, “It really works!” but he doesn’t know why.  His guess was that the malt vinegar serves as a shock to the taste buds and that this overwhelming sour taste distracts one from the hiccups and makes them go away.

I think that perhaps Geoff is correct with his assertion that the vinegar works because it shocks the taste buds.  It might work much like the other folk remedy I’ve found common: to surprise or scare someone to make their hiccups go away.  In both cases, the remedy is shock to one’s body that immediately takes the person’s mind off the hiccups.  I think the cure could be both physical and psychological.  Because it physically shocks the body, and psychologically takes one’s mind off the hiccups.