[Ads-l] Bunkum and Occam

[Stephen Goranson]

Though there may be more important questions today, which, given currently-available evidence, appears more Occam-friendly:


a) A congressman from Buncombe (also unofficially spelled Bunkum) in Feb. 1820 made a speech others characterized as, more or less, nonsense, palaver that eventually gave rise to the (pseudo-Latin sounding) bunkum, political clap-trap, known today (especially today).


b) The Buncombe-related speech term eventually merged with a discretely  pre-existent yet separately (then-recently?)  created and previously ill-defined word bunkum.


c) Some other scenario.

?


Stephen Goranson

http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/


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