(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
