Bullshit

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This article is about the expletive. For the card game, see Bullshit (game). For the TV show, see Bullshit!.

Bullshit (often bowdlerized to BS) is a common English expletive. Its most common usage is as a description of incorrect, misleading or false language and statements. In a literal meaning, it means the feces of a bull. As with many expletives, it can be used as an interjection (or in many other parts of speech) and can carry a wide variety of meanings.

As it contains the word "shit", the term is sometimes considered foul language, hence the use of the euphemistic abbreviations "bull" and "BS". However the term is prevalent in American English and, as with many words, the term is used in a variety of countries, some dating back to approximately the same era WWI. In British English, bollocks is a comparable expletive.

While bullshitting and bullshit can be used in a deprecating sense, the term 'bullshit artist' may imply a measure of respect for the skill required to bullshit effectively. It is by no means necessary to be inaccurate or wrong to be bullshitting, simply being overly pompous, presumptuous, or putting on excessively academic airs, may also be labelled in some cultural subgroups as bullshitting.

1 Etymology
2 Uses of "bullshit"
3 "Bullshit" in philosophy
4 Further reading
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Etymology

"Bull", meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century (Concise Oxford Dictionary), whereas the term "bullshit" is popularly considered to have been first used in 1915, in American slang, and to have come into popular usage only during World War II. The word "bull" itself may have derived from the Old French boul meaning "fraud, deceit" (Oxford English Dictionary). The term "bullshit" is a near synonym.

The earliest attestation mentioned by the Concise Oxford Dictionary is in fact T. S. Eliot, who between 1910 and 1916 wrote an early poem to which he gave the title The Triumph of Bullshit, written in the form of a ballade. The first stanza goes:

Ladies, on whom my attentions have waited
If you consider my merits are small
Etiolated, alembicated,
Orotund, tasteless, fantastical,
Monotonous, crotchety, constipated,
Impotent galamatias
Affected, possibly imitated,
For Christ's sake stick it up your ass.

The word bullshit does not appear in the text of the poem, though in keeping with the ballade form, the refrain "For Christ's sake stick it up your ass" appears in each following verse and concludes the envoi. Eliot did not publish this poem during his lifetime. ^[1]

As to earlier etymology the OED cites bull with the meaning "trivial, insincere, untruthful talk or writing, nonsense". It describes this usage as being of unknown origin, but notes the following: "OF boul, boule, bole fraud, deceit, trickery; mod. Icel bull ‘nonsense’; also ME bull BUL ‘falsehood’, and BULL verb, to befool, mock, cheat." ^[2]

Although as the above makes clear there is no confirmed etymological connection it might be noted that these older meanings are synonymous with the modern expression "Bull" otherwise generally considered (and intentionally used as) a contraction of "Bullshit".

[edit] Uses of "bullshit"

The word "bullshit" is most often applied adjectivally to deprecate a statement or an action.

The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Bullshit (as a culturally based activity) commonly occurs in situations where truth and accuracy are far less important than the ability to achieve a suitable response in the audience. In many cases, such a response helps to gain popularity or favor (often needed in politics, religion or advertising). More mundane examples of bullshit often involve the lives of ordinary people. For example, it is not at all uncommon to hear of people "bullshitting" a job interview, or attributing their performance in an examination to their ability to bullshit. In this sense, bullshitting walks the line between extemporaneous speaking and lying outright. It is also common for people to bullshit friends or acquaintances, by spinning an elaborate tall tale. The object here is to make the bullshittees look foolish by dint of their gullibility in accepting the bullshit as fact. Bullshit does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication; with only basic knowledge about a topic, bullshit is often used to make the audience believe that one knows far more about the topic by feigning total certainty or making probable predictions. It may also merely be "filler" or nonsense that, by virtue of its style or wording, gives the impression that it actually means something. In his essay on the subject (see Further reading), William G. Perry called bull[shit] "relevancies, however relevant, without data" and gave a definition of the verb "to bull[shit]" as follows:

To discourse upon the contexts, frames of reference and points of observation which would determine the origin, nature, and meaning of data if one had any. To present evidence of an understanding of form in the hope that the reader may be deceived into supposing a familiarity with content.

The "bullshitter" generally either knows the statements are false or has no interest in their factual accuracy one way or the other. "Talking bullshit" is thus a lesser form of lying, and is likely to elicit a correspondingly weaker emotional response: whereas an obvious liar may be greeted with derision, outrage, or anger, an exponent of bullshit tends to be dismissed with an indifferent sneer.

Sometimes called "shooting the shit", bullshit can also be the act of having a very casual conversation with little value.

Bullshit is also used in the popular saying "money talks, bullshit walks" meaning that people who "do something" such as "put their money on the table", or "put up or shutup" will get more results than people who merely talk. Making this statement indicates that the talking up to this time has been bullshit and that it is now time to do something or the speaker will walk away from the proposed deal.

Bullshit can also refer to excessively complex, unreasonable, or burdensome requirements demanded of an individual or organization by another, especially by government agencies or other bureaucracies. For example, a contractor wishing to bid on a government job may refer to the paperwork required to do so as "government bullshit."

The word "horseshit" is often used in vulgar slang as a synonym for "bullshit" to refer to nonsense. The usage of "horseshit" (a less common term) differs slightly from "bullshit". People may refer to their own statements and presentations as "bullshit," as in the traditional folk saying, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit". "Horseshit" is more often used as a reactive exclamation or profoundly distrustful assessment.

"Bullshit" implies dubious credibility with an understood lack of true malevolence, whereas "horseshit" suggests uncompromised ignorance or deception. "Horseshit" carries with it a certain connotation of indignation; stating that something is a "load of horseshit" usually implies that the speaker feels somehow cheated or wronged by the current situation, whereas calling something "bullshit" can imply anything from indignation to a joking and good-natured intent.

Furthermore, Bullshit can also be used to express suprise, shock and/or humour at a truthful tale - often because the end result of the story or incident is of such fortune that if you didn't know any better you'd instantly assume the tale to be fictional. The statement of "Bullshit!" in this context is more likely followed up by a question (such as "Are you serious?"), or combined in a question (eg. "No way! Are you bullshitting me?"), which serves the purpose of asking the person telling the story to reconfirm the truthfulness of the tale.

[edit] "Bullshit" in philosophy

In his 1986 essay On Bullshit, philosopher Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The bullshitter, on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress:

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose. [1] [2]

Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with Ludwig Wittgenstein's disdain of "non-sense" talk, and with the popular concept of a "bull session" in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of bullshit in modern society upon anti-realism and upon the growing frequency of situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without knowing what they're talking about.

[edit] Further reading

Penny, Laura (2005). Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth About Bullshit. Random House. ISBN 1-4000-8103-3. — Halifax academic Laura Penny's study of the phenomenon of bullshit and its impact on modern society.
Frankfurt, Harry G. (2005). On Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12294-6. — Harry Frankfurt's detailed analysis of the concept of bullshit.
Perry, William G. (1967). Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts. Originally published in Harvard College: A Collection of Essays by Members of the Harvard Faculty.
Holt, Jim, Say Anything, one of his Critic At Large essays from The New Yorker, (Aug. 22, 2005)
Eliot, T. S. Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 (Harcourt, 1997) ISBN 0-151002-74-6