BULLOCKS - euph/typo/LA pron.?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>And I'm sorry to report that my big Nederlands Koenen (M.J. Koenen & J.B.
>Drewes, Verklarend Handwoordenboek der Nederlandse Taal, 27th ed.) gives no
>evidence of a word *pappekak, *pappenkak, *papkak or any other compound of
>pap and kak in contemporary Dutch. So I guess the etymology of poppycock
>will have to be sought elsewhere.

This has been discussed on newsgroups alt.usage.english and nl.taal. Not
only are "pappekak" and "papkak" unknown in contemporary Dutch but
apparently they are absent from all forms of Dutch back to 1500 according
to some Dutchman who checked the humongous Van Dale historical dictionary.
Of course I don't vouch for the accuracy of anything in newsgroups, but if
one shows a Dutch word as an etymon I think he takes some responsibility
for showing that it exists or existed or at least probably existed, and I
don't see anybody presenting any such evidence, at a glance.

Somebody suggests derivation from Dutch "labbekak", which at least
definitely exists and had related sense ("babbler" or "speaker of
nonsense"): if I read the Dutch right, "labbekak" is presumptively derived
from "labben" = "likken" ("lick") + "kak" [from "kakelen"
("cackle"/"chatter") but associated with "kak" = "shit"]. "Labbekak" seems
to mean "wimp" or so today.

Besides the above compound words one might check for expressions such as
"pappige kak" or "pappig kakje" (because of my profound ignorance of Dutch,
I cannot tell whether these are plausible or not). I don't find these, at a
glance.

-- Doug Wilson