bunkum means senseless talk; nonsense; a piece of nonsense.
bunkum is pronounced /ˈbʌŋkəm/.
Why “bunkum” is a great word
Insincere or foolish talk, especially bombastic political speech intended for public applause rather than substance. From Buncombe, the name of a county in North Carolina, from a 1820 incident where U.S. Representative Felix Walker insisted on giving a long, wearisome speech, claiming he was 'speaking to Buncombe' for his constituents, which made the term a synonym for meaningless political oratory. Unlike “balderdash,” which suggests a trivial jumble of nonsense, or “rhetoric,” which can be the noble art of persuasion, bunkum is rhetoric stripped of its soul: the polished, hollow echo in a legislative chamber, the campaign promise forged from air, the constituent letter stuffed with platitudes instead of policy. It is the weary sound of democracy talking to itself in an empty room, mistaking volume for virtue.
Etymology
From buncombe, from “speaking to (or for) Buncombe County, North Carolina”, a county in North Carolina named for Edward Buncombe. In 1820, Felix Walker, who represented the county in the U.S. House of Representatives, rose to address the question of admitting Missouri as a free or slave state, his first attempt to speak on the subject after nearly a month of solid debate, right before the vote was to be called. To the exasperation of colleagues, he began a long and wearisome speech, explaining that he was speaking not to Congress but "to Buncombe." He was ultimately shouted down by his colleagues, though his speech was published in a Washington paper and his persistence made "buncombe" (later respelled "bunkum") a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsens
noun
- Senseless talk; nonsense; a piece of nonsense.“[…] the manifold and serpentine wiles and evasions, shufflings and fencings, deceits and dissimulations, he had practised —the bunkums and the quackeries, […]”
- Bombastic political posturing or oratorical display designed only for show or public applause.
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