Chrysti The Wordsmith: Balderdash - 1

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman. The English language offers a magnificent treasury of polysyllabic terms implying a nonsense consider claptrap poppycock hooey Horsefeathers gobbledygook bunkum hokum hogwash baloney and balderdash. On the next few words with additions will investigate the biographies of a few of the above terms that linguistically approximate nonsense and will commence alphabetically with balderdash at the top of the list. Balderdash is a term of considerable antiquity in its earliest incarnation and referred to a jumbled mixture of two liquids such as beer and wine or more appallingly beer and milk in sixteen twenty nine. The playwright Ben Johnson wrote beer or butter milk mingled together. It is against my freehold to drink such balderdash by the late sixties hundreds the word was being used to express the notion of a senseless jumble of words of spoken or written nonsense or trash with

authors writing of profane balderdash and the balderdash which men must talk at popular meetings. Most sources say that it's reasonable to assume that the word arose from the notion of an in Congress mixture of wine and beer or beer and buttermilk of the kind Ben Johnson wrote. Such an eccentric commingle and provides a perfect metaphor for the balderdash. That's a senseless jumble of verbosity. Next time I Christi the wordsmith another word for nonsense baloney. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.