Damo 4:02 Fri Oct 3
Bullshit (the word)
|
|
Why?
Very commonly used word all over the world
But why specifically bull's shit?
|
|
|
Replies - Newest Posts First ( Show In Chronological Order)
ironsofcanada
9:58 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
WHOicidal Maniac 8:14 Fri Oct 3
I would say the Wiki is probably taking a bit of liberty in combining senses.
The 17th century uses were different, I guess you can argue how much.
Milton in True Religion (or the full title that I love, "Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration; and what best means may be used against the Growth of Popery") says:
"Whereas the Papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholick, it is a meer contradiction, one of the Popes Bulls."
It was a specific term for a contradiction not a term for general nonsense and not used in an adjectival way from the uses I can find.
There was also its sense of (according to the OED) a (usually ridiculous) "jest" from the contemporary verb "bull" meaning "to make a fool of or mock."
The third sense that OED cities, which is the one that mentions nonsense
(3 a. Trivial, insincere, or untruthful talk or writing; nonsense.")
is first cited in the 1914 American scholastic journal that I mentioned earlier. So it certain existed a few years before being cited in such a formal source but probably not that many.
|
WHOicidal Maniac
8:14 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
Wiki as its origins as
"Bull", meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century,[1] while the term "bullshit" has been used as early as 1915 in American slang,[2] and came into popular usage only during World War II. The word "bull" itself may have derived from the Old French boul meaning "fraud, deceit".[2]
|
Sven Roeder
7:40 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
The cultured British version is not bollocks .... it is surely BALDERDASH
|
Thunderlips
7:08 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
when I was a teenager (1970's) I had a t-shirt with a picture of a mini dartboard with a dart on the bullseye and in big letters underneath it said 'BULLSHIT'. My nan bought it for me bless her!
|
ironsofcanada
7:02 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
Just found where T. E. Lawrence used it ain letter in 1930 as well.
Seems like a lot of early use was in a military setting.
|
ironsofcanada
6:54 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
EE.Cummings, the American writer was probably one of the first "respectable" people to use it in print. His 1922 semi-autobiographical novel The Enormous Room has the line
"When we asked him once what he thought about the war, he replied, "I t'ink lotta bull—,"
The line in the 1928 edition ends with "bullsh—t."
"Bull" with the meaning "nonsense" is in print a bit earlier. The American journal Dialect Notes has an entry in 1914 that says:
Bull: talk which is not to the purpose; ‘hot air’.
Sir Pelham Grenville (P. G.) Wodehouse, KBE, British humourist used "bull" at least as early as 1925. So if the two are connected, it is not completely American usage until recently.
My guess would be that it is a printed sanitisation of the longer term but I haven't looked into it in any detail and maybe the article Herts Hammer posted would argue against that.
|
WHOicidal Maniac
6:50 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
Bollocks is better than Bullshit...
Bullshit FEELS foreign.
|
Lily Hammer
6:46 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
Oh, and obviously the cultured British version is "Bollocks," which can be further described as load of bollocks, complete bollocks, load of hairy dangling bollocks etc etc etc.
|
Lily Hammer
6:44 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
"BullSHIT, Mr Handman!"
Enter The Dragon, 1974.
Possibly the first time I heard it.....not in 1974, though, probably around 1980.
|
WHOicidal Maniac
6:20 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
I never heard it as a kid, seemed to be another Americanism that came over in the late 70's/early 80's
|
PistonHammered
5:36 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
I live in a country where horse shit and bull shit are used to describe one's disbelief in something, They are both used freely in place of each other and are universally understood by all. So that weakens your point.
Now I have heard it said that I am full of 'shit' with no animal reference attached but I have never been accused of being full of pig shit or squirrel shit.
|
Herts Hammer
4:16 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
http://www.irregardlessmagazine.com/language-and-grammar/etymology-of-bullshit-and-factoid/
|
i-Ron
4:04 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
I'm guessing something to do with the size of the shit that bulls leave?
|
Buster
4:04 Fri Oct 3
Re: Bullshit (the word)
|
The thread title that sums up the thread itself without even having to click on it.
|
| 
