POPPYCOCK

[Dr. Goodword]

• poppycock •

Pronunciation: pah-pee-kahk • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass (No plural)

Meaning: Bull, bunkum, fiddle-faddle, flapdoodle, hogwash, horse feathers, hooey, hokum, malarkey, nonsense, tommy-rot, whang-doodle, or common, everyday gobbledygook.

Notes: Here is another colorful substitute for nonsense. As I’ve mentioned before, it is a shame we need so many ways to express this particular concept. It is a funny word that might have been included in The 100 Funniest Words in English but was somehow overlooked.

In Play: Americans probably associate this word with England but, as we will see in the History, it originates in the US. However, we may feel free to use it wherever English is spoken: "Lionel made up some poppycock about his car running into a flock of birds on the freeway as an excuse for being late to work again." You might even find a use for this word in the workplace: "Management's decision to move forward on the development of the helicopter ejector seat was based on some fact-free poppycock from the marketing department."

Word History: Today's silly word has nothing to do with poppies or roosters. It comes from an old Dutch dialect probably spoken in New York or Pennsylvania in the 1830s. The word then was poppekak "doll poop" found only in an idiomatic phrase referring to religious zeal, which I will not repeat here. This compound noun is composed of poppe "baby, doll" + kak "poop". Poppe "baby, doll" is a member of a family of words with similar meanings, including English puppet and puppy and Late Latin puppa "doll". Kak was borrowed by Dutch from Latin cacare "to poop", which came from the same word that gave Greek kakos "bad". This word turns up in English borrowings, such as cacophony "discordant sound".

[Slava]

Great Word here. I like the fact that so many of its synonyms are so common, too. Horse feathers is, of course, the title of a book of word origins. Poppycock itself is a snack, as is Fiddle-Faddle. I think Gobbledygook is, too. Tommy Rot could be one of the Good Doctor's Good Names in his word histories.

And without doubt, doll poop has to be one of the greatest word origins I've heard of. It reminded me of the one and only George Carlin: "Do-do, kaka, poo-poo, and good old Number 2!" While mentioning it, I won't reproduce his "Seven Dirty Words" spiel here. Brilliant, though.

There's also the idea of pooh-poohing an idea. For some reason the "h" seems natural there, any idea why?

[Stargzer]

... Word History: Today's silly word has nothing to do with poppies or roosters. It comes from an old Dutch dialect probably spoken in New York or Pennsylvania in the 1830s. The word then was poppekak "doll poop" found only in an idiomatic phrase referring to religious zeal, which I will not repeat here. This compound noun is composed of poppe "baby, doll" + kak "poop". Poppe "baby, doll" is a member of a family of words with similar meanings, including English puppet and puppy and Late Latin puppa "doll". Kak was borrowed by Dutch from Latin cacare "to poop", which came from the same word that gave Greek kakos "bad". This word turns up in English borrowings, such as cacophony "discordant sound".

Ever the Southern Gentleman, our Good Doctor, even in the land of the Damnyankee!


Two other sources differ with our Good Doctor on the first half of the word:

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary has this short bit to say:

poppycock

• noun informal nonsense.

— ORIGIN Dutch dialect pappekak, from pap ‘soft’ + kak ‘dung’.

Whilst the Online Etymology Dictionary has this similar entry:

poppycock
1865, probably from Du. dialect pappekak, from M.Du. pappe "soft dung" (see pap) + kak "dung," from L. cacare "to excrete."

(I think in light of the COED entry, the first "dung" in the OnlineED is a typographical error. Follow the pap link, too.)

Dolly dung or soft dung, it's all the same.

[Dr. Goodword]

Both theories are speculative. However, if it came from pappe "soft dung" + kak "dung", we have to explain why anyone would have made up a compound that repeated the same meaning. (I really don't think kak is hard dung.) The OED speculation, which I adopted, avoids this dilemma and also saves itself from explaining the shift of A to O.

[Stargzer]

I think the Online ED has a typo. The Compact Oxford ED shows pappe as coming from pap meaning soft.

Whether it's doll or soft, either way I get an inkling of the description of religious zeal you alluded to.

[Perry]

Great Word here. I like the fact that so many of its synonyms are so common, too. Horse feathers is, of course, the title of a book of word origins. Poppycock itself is a snack, as is Fiddle-Faddle. I think Gobbledygook is, too. Tommy Rot could be one of the Good Doctor's Good Names in his word histories.

And without doubt, doll poop has to be one of the greatest word origins I've heard of. It reminded me of the one and only George Carlin: "Do-do, kaka, poo-poo, and good old Number 2!" While mentioning it, I won't reproduce his "Seven Dirty Words" spiel here. Brilliant, though.

There's also the idea of pooh-poohing an idea. For some reason the "h" seems natural there, any idea why?

IMHO, anyone claiming that Poppycock is better than Cracker Jacks is talking poppycock. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.