as if Squashville, or Punkinsville, or Lumbertown was right represented, unless Squashville, or Punkinsville, or Lumbertown makes itself heard and known, ay, and feared too. So every feller, in bounden duty, talks, and talks big too, and the smaller the State, the louder, bigger, and fiercer its members talk. Well, when a critter talks for talk's sake, jist to have a speech in the paper to send to home, and not for any other airthly puppus but electioneering, our folks call it bunkum.'
The term is now universal on both sides of the water, and, indeed, wherever English is spoken. So much is this the case that the expression may now fairly claim a permanent place in the language. The primary meaning has been somewhat enlarged. 'That's all buncombe' is equivalent to 'That's all nonsense' or 'an absurdity.'
Also used attributively; for example, a bunkum proclamation, BUNKUM logic, BUNKUM politicians, etc.
1841. Richmond Compiler, Aug. 17. He was not speaking to the House but to bunkum.
1859. Sala, Tw. Round the Clock, 2 a.m., par. 9. These tales, full of sound and fury, told by honourable idiots full of unutterable 'bunkum' (an Americanism I feel constrained to use, as signifying nothingness, ineftably inept and irremediably fire-perforated windbaggery, and sublimated cucumber sunbeams hopelessly eclipsed into Dis)—
1861. Blackwood's Mag., April. 'This parable, explaining the origin of buncombe, would form a very useful text to set up, handsomely illustrated, over the Speaker's chair in Parliament.'
1862. New York Tribune, Feb. 11. Despatch from Kansas. General Sibley was within thirty miles of Fort Craig, with twenty-five hundred Texans, with artillery, and had issued a bunkum proclamation.
1884. Echo, May 12, p. 4, col. 2. It will be seen that the wonderful tales about the favourites were like the reports about Richmond's lameness, all BUNKUM.
1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, March 3. This thing of trying to rule a husband is all buncombe; it can't be done. You can coax most men, bribe some, and govern a very few, but that vulgar rubbing of the fur the right way wins every time.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 18 Oct., p. 6, col. 2. His explanation was contained in the three words, 'Bosh, rubbish, and bunkum.' Was it not time, asked the speaker, that the 'great unwashed' should declare that the 'great unpaid' were no longer at liberty to oppress them?
Bunky, adj. (Christ's Hospital).—Awkward; ill-finished.
Bunnick, verb (common).—To settle; to dispose of.
1886. Punch, 17 July, p. 25. 'Owsom-ever we've bunnicked up Gladsting, a barney all patriots enjoy.
Bunny Grub, subs. (Cheltenham College).—Green vegetables, such as cabbage, lettuce, and the like. [Obviously from bunny, a pet name for a rabbit, + grub, a slang term for provender, i.e., food akin to that upon which rabbits are fed.] At the Royal Military Academy and other schools an equivalent is grass (q.v.).
Bunse.—See Bunce.
Bun-Struggle or Bun-Worry, subs. (military).—A tea meeting given to soldiers. For synonymous terms, see Tea fight.
Bunt.—See Bunce.
