![]() Some BS words have a more literary pedigree than others, and that's certainly true of this word coined by George Orwell in his famous dystopian novel 1984, published in 1949. If we ever run out of them, I'll be gobsmacked. This very popular word can be found everywhere from Irish newspapers to the title of literary magazine the Gobshite Quarterly. ![]() As seen in words like drivel and palaver, spit is never far from the bullshit lexicon. Its 1986 use in John Hockey's Squaddies: Portrait of a Subculture is characteristic, as the author describes a sergeant who "was a regular gobshite always shouting at you in barracks."Īnother sense of gob may have influenced this word: It's been a verb meaning spitting and a noun for a wad of spit. By the mid-20th century it can be found referring to a fool, then a fool with a big mouth. This mostly Irish word first turns up as a term for a seaman in the U.S. Then you could tell your friend to make up for the insult by buying you nachos.Įven if you elude Big Brother, there's no escape from Big Bullshit. If a friend said, "I heard you hate nachos," you could reply, "Applesauce!" as a firm denial. The word can also be used a simple dismissal of something. Often it means lies or flattery, as in this example from Ring Lardner Jr.'s The Love Nest and Other Stories: "I wasn't born yesterday and I know apple sauce when I hear it, and I bet you've told that to 50 girls." ![]() Or maybe applesauce tasted like pure crap to someone, because this has been a synonym for nonsense since at least the 1920s. Maybe this term was influenced by horse apples, a euphemism for horseshit. Horseshit and rubbish aren't highly valued, to say the least.īut applesauce? That origin isn't so clear. It's obvious why some words become synonyms for bullshit. Here, in an excerpt from his new book, Bullshit: A Lexicon (Three Rivers Press), Peters shares five colorful phrases to add to your vocabulary. -Jill Krasny Applesauce Fortunately, Mark Peters, card-carrying member of the American Dialect Society who happens to write the Best Joke Ever column for McSweeney's, has your number. You need something forceful. Hilarious. Eloquent. You know the deal: You're sitting at work, bored out of your skull, and BS is no longer cutting it. Sometimes you've gotta call a spade a stinking pile of horseshit.
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