Sunday, June 15, 2008

More Bullshit




<< A bull prepares to drop a steaming corporate mission statement

Apropos of nothing, I got to thinking today about where the phrase 'bullshit' comes from. There's a lot of poo-related swear words out there, but not many with such a specific meaning. How did bovine bowel movements become associated with falsehoods (that's not quite what bullshit is - the beauty of the word is that it refers to something no other word can describe). Well, the answer is really quite interesting - and none of the aforementioned either:

Using the phrase 'bull' to describe something false or nonsensical predates the use of the word 'bullshit'.





I had always thought it was the other way round, and that 'bull' was the clean version, much like 'fudge' or 'sugar' (incidentally, I remember an edition of Family Fortunes where words used to replace swears was the topic, and the guy said Schweppes, not realising that he was the only person in the world who used it). Not so - 'bull' first appeared in the 17th century, and probably came from the French word 'boul', meaning fraud or deceit. Bullshit didn't come into use until the 20th century, and has been around ever since, as anyone who's ever had customer care training will testify...

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