(Submitted by friend of the blog, Brian Hart)
I was visiting Atlanta to do a panel discussion on education vs. debunking. Prior to the panel, I started thinking about the word bunk and debunk and decided to find their original meanings. A few minutes of Internet research told me that the word was derived from a region in North Carolina called Buncombe County. A representative from that county in the 1820s named Felix Walker was known to ramble on with long and wearisome speeches for Buncombe. In Washington, D.C. the term, “you are full of Buncombe” became a common phrase. Over the years the spelling changed to bunkum and the meaning morphed into “any kind of nonsense.” I was able to bring this origin and meaning into the panel discussion that day.
Two days later, my wife and I drove to see her cousins in Asheville, North Carolina. We arrived in the evening, and when I was talking about my panel and recounting the origin of Bunkum to the cousins, they all laughed and said, “Asheville is the seat of Buncombe County!” The next day we walked over and took pictures of the courthouse, where the words “Buncombe County Court House” are written in stone.
Brian Hart in front of the Bumcombe County Courthouse
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I love historical trivia like this. Some more details: the origin of this can be dated to a specific debate in Congress (during the contentious Missouri Compromise era) on February 25, 1820. So that can be said to be the birthday of the word bunkum.
Some sources disagree, but judging from what is printed in the Congressional Record the speech never occurred on the floor – Felix Walker rose to talk, was shouted down by debate-weary cohorts who wanted to vote. He supposedly protested that he only wanted to speak “for Buncombe”, i.e. address his constituents in the record. The speech later appeared in the newspaper and of course was drivel. Speaking “for Buncombe” evolved into “speaking bunkum” and finally bunk. Debunk was coined much later in a 1923 book.I collect stuff like this in a project I call skeptic history, details here: http://skeptools.wordpress.com/skeptic-history/
Funny enough, the business trip which I had just come home from when I had my stroke was one where I was AT that very courthouse in Asheville.
Fun part about the Asheville City Hall was at that time, 7 or so years ago, the building still had an old-fashioned elevator operator.
I always found that quite…. ‘quaint’ each time I had to drive up there and meet with the folks in their government.