bunkumとは

意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From buncombe, from “speaking to (または 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."^[1] He was ultimately shouted down by his colleagues,^[2] though his speech was published in a Washington paper^[3] and his persistence made "buncombe" (later respelled "bunkum") a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsense,^[1] at first only in the jargon of Washington and then in common usage (see discussion on talk page).^[4]

発音

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʌŋkəm/
• Homophone: buncombe
• ハイフネーション: bunk‧um

名詞

bunkum (countable かつ uncountable, 複数形 bunkums)

1. (slang, countable) Senseless talk; nonsense; a piece of nonsense.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense

2. (politics) Bombastic political posturing or oratorical display designed only for show or public applause. [1820s]

派生語

• bunk
• debunk
• hokum

参照