How Do YOU Say Bull***
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Bushwa. “That’s just a bunch of bushwa.” When I was a child, especially when judgemental grownups were around, I didn’t dare utter the term bull****, I said bushwa. My mom often shouted hooey and fudge, but those and dag nabbit, were the only cuss words uttered in my childhood. But now, more than ever, OK lets shout it out…bullshit! Bullshit is my go-to expletive for utter nonsense. Even in polite circles, I rarely use the term utter nonsense anymore.
Its bullshit!
Terms denoting doodoo, poo, scat, whatever your pleasure, have always been favored suffixes to denote nonsense and lies. Of course, we’ve often dipped into horse shit, crap and pucky in our rants. Poppycock comes from the Dutch word poppekak, literally meaning the excrement of dolls. Cack, which hits you over the head like a Bobby’s baton, is British. But ignoring the scatological, the Brits also claim codswallop, twaddle, tommyrot, humbug and, for the Irish, blarney and Joe Biden’s malarkey, in honor of whom and it, Merriam-Webster designated “Word of the Year” in 2020, jointly with COVID.
The Germans came up with quatsch, papperlapapp and wischiwaschi (could they have stolen that from us)? The Dutch brought us zottenklap, the Spanish, tonteria.
An old professor of mine termed one of my theories bilgewater.
Then there is BOMFOG, an acronym for “Brotherhood of Man, Fatherhood of God,” created by journalist Walter Lippman to describe “the pious, homily-ridden blather of politicians.”
And what about Trumpery. Trumpery comes first from the Middle English then Middle French where tromper meant to deceive, like trompe-l’oeil, those pictures painted in such perfect perspective that they deceive the eye, that look real but are not, like those sidewalks painted to look like there are big pits in them that you could stumble into. Trumpery reappeared in English in the 15th century to mean “deceit or fraud” and “worthless nonsense.” Later the term trump-up meant “to concoct with the intent to deceive.”
Now this is from Merriam and Webster, rest their souls. I am writing this now in fear that dictionaries could soon be banned.
Oh fudge, that would really be real…now let’s shout it…bullshit!.
