In the mid seventeenth century, the English borrowed the French phrase haulgout—literally meaning high taste—and applied it both to foods with a pleasantly piquant flavour and to foods that stink to high heaven. Sometimes the English spelt the term as hogo, representing how they actually pronounced the French term, but the new spelling never completely overtook the original. The two forms, haul gout and hogo, have existed side by side ever since.