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Terms for bullshit in the English language have grown so vast it has now become a lexicon itself. We talked to Mark Peters, author of Bullshit: A Lexicon, about where the next set of new terms will come from, why most of the words are farm related, and bullshit in politics.

The post What a load of BS: Q&A with Mark Peters appeared first on OUPblog.

When horses were a common means of transportation, horseshit was as common as potholes are today. While actual horse feces is rare nowadays, horseshit is as common as ever in our vocabulary.The list of synonyms and euphemisms—such as horsefeathers, horse hockey, horse hooey, horse pucky, and horse apples—is huge, taking up many pages in the Dictionary of American Regional English, Green’s Dictionary of Slang, and the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

The post Holy horsecrap, Batman! The equine BS vocabulary appeared first on OUPblog.

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By Mark Peters

I love bullshit.

Perhaps I should clarify. It’s not pure, unadulterated bullshit I enjoy (or even the hard-to-find alternative, adulterated bullshit). I agree with the great George Carlin, who said, “It’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for ya.” Hard to argue with that.

What I love is the enormous lexicon of words for bullshit and nonsense. Studies show they are all wonderful words. Piffle! Tommyrot! Poppycock! Truthiness! Balderdash! Rot! Crapola! Hogwash! Intellectual black holes! Using a vivid, meaty word like gobbledygook almost makes it worth dealing with gobbledygook itself. A few years ago in this very blog, I looked at some of these words.

Three years later, I’m older, wiser, and no less enamored of BS and all BS-like terms. This time, instead of looking at the origin stories of terms you already know, I’m going to share some terms I bet you don’t know: bullshit obscurities, some of which I’d never have found without the help of newly published sources, like Green’s Dictionary of Slang, the magnificent work of Mr. Slang, Jonathon Green. I implore you: give these words a home in your doomsday prophesies and cupcake recipes. They should be useful. You can never, ever have enough words for bullshit.

flummadiddle
Here’s a spin on flummery that would make Ned Flanders proud. Like flummery, flummadiddle (also spelled flummerdiddle and flummydiddle) has been used to mean either horsefeathers or something that would taste just as awful, as in this 1872 OED example: “Flummadiddle consists of stale bread, pork-fat, molasses, cinnamon, allspice, [etc.]; by the aid of these materials a kind of mush is made, which is baked in the oven and brought to the table hot and brown.” Mmm, mush. No wonder this diddly-fied version of flummery works so well when describing mushy thoughts and words, as in this 1854 use: “What does she want of any more flummerdiddle notions?” Bonus BS: this word is related to fadoodle and fairydiddle.

arkymalarky
One of my top five favorite BS words has always been malarkey, so I had at least two wordgasms when I found this variation in Green’s. Green spots two uses from the 1930’s and 40’s, both by Carl Sandberg, so this term might be an invention of his. Surely it deserves broader use, partly because it has the reduplication that makes jibber-jabber, mumbo-jumbo, and pishery-pashery such fitting words for fiddle-faddle. Yet another BS-y reduplicative term has a Shakespearian résumé: skimble-skamble appeared in Henry IV: “Such a deale of skimble scamble stuffe, As puts me from my faith.”

ackamarackus
Green notes that arkymalarky may be related to ackamarackus, which the OED defines as “Something regarded as pretentious nonsense; something intended to deceive; humbug.” Apparently, giving someone the old ackamarackus is like giving them the old okey-doke: a maneuver perfected by politicians and other flim-flammers.

donkey dust
This Massachusetts term—recorded in t

...would be as irresponsible a headline as Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children — and about as accurate.

Suppose I wanted to write an article about the decline of air travel in September. I could elaborate on what is meant by “decline” by looking at whether there were periods of higher air travel due to fare wars or other circumstances. I could write about the continuing poor economy affecting the number of flights. I could discuss cycles of travel where there is downturn after the summer months. I could even investigate travel in general, looking at statistics of train or automobile trips for comparison.

Or I could decide that bedbugs are a hot issue and look to link them with air travel declines. After all, there are people that think about germs on planes and from germs it’s a short leap to vermin on planes and after talking to someone for thirty minutes or so and maybe mentioning bedbugs specifically I could get a quote like, “I won’t be getting on a plane with bedbugs!” And if the rest of that person’s thought was along the lines of, “Boy, am I glad that’s not a problem,” well, so be it.

It is certainly possible and even likely that publication and purchasing for picture books is down. But first of all, down from what? Is this a market correction of what was a picture book boom? Is the poor economy in general making parents buy cheaper paperbacks? Are we in a market cycle where publishers are putting more investment into a hot YA market? Are people turning to other sources for picture books, including libraries and yard sales? Should we look at library circulation statistics? And if parents are pushing chapter books, is it a new trend? Is it quantifiable?

Or is it easier to cast this as a hot topic like pushy parenting and imply an end to picture books?

I haven’t done the in-depth research to answer the questions I’m posing. But then again, neither did The New York Times. The difference is that I don’t have the power to make people anxious about the literacy progression of our children or cause concern about the state of the picture book or affect the industry with my write-up.

Because that would be irresponsible.

Blog reader Mary sent me some disturbing follow-up information on the West Bend, Wisconsin, censorship issue I crippled the West Bend library board by rejecting the mayor's suggested reappointment of four library board members. (All other mayoral appointments were approved en masse.) Reasons cited for the rejections? Lack of "common sense," concern for the city's "morality," and—particularly striking to me—difference of opinion.

Excuse me, but I thought the point of a public library was to represent a wide variety of opinions—at least as wide a variety as the community it serves! Apparently not. Turns out if you want to censor materials you disagree with—i.e., if you think the First Amendment doesn't apply to your community—you just need to get rid of all dissenting opinions. Or, failing that, get rid of all dissenting opinions on the library board.

The board members rejected include a retired academic librarian and 24-year board member; an attorney; a retired school teacher and book shop worker; and a high school English teacher. In other words, these are highly educated people who know books, know libraries, know teenagers, know the LAW. They were carrying out library policy in accordance with the Library Bill of Rights. Yet the city council decided they don't know what "serves the interest of their community."

Disgusting.

I hope the citizens of West Bend prove that though the city council may have eliminated four dissenting opinions from the current library board, the "interest of the community" hasn't magically conformed to Jim and Ginny Maziarkas' narrow worldview.