Etymology Break: “Bunkum”

I did not know until today that “bunk,” “bunkum,” and “debunk” were among North Carolina's many contributions to Western Civilization. Imagine Brave New World without Ford's “History is bunk”—it wouldn't work. And where would anti-spiritualist literature be without “debunk”?

It turns out that “bunkum” actually comes from Buncombe County, location of Asheville and birthplace of Thomas Wolfe. You may have known this already. But I learned it today.

“[The Jeffersonian Republicans] were determined to get Missouri admitted without restrictions on slavery. After the Sixteenth Congress convened in December 1819, the debate over Missouri resumed. The speeches seemed interminable as well as intemperate. When Felix Walker of North Carolina was urged to sit down, he replied that he had to give his speech for the folks back home, ‘for Buncombe County.’ Ever since, Americans have called a certain kind of inflated political oratory ‘buncombe’ — or ‘bunk’ for short.”

-Daniel Walker Howe. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. (151)

I've spent non-negligible amounts of time in Buncombe County on many occasions… but I never knew.

Explanation.

Dear The Internet,

I haven't been around much these last few weeks. I wish I could say that I'm sorry, but really, I'm not. I definitely don't feel like I owe you an explanation, but I suppose I can give you an explanation, as a gift or something. Basically, these last few weeks have been a sort of perfect storm of (1) interesting things happening in the physical world (e.g. a spate of weddings), (2) concentrating on things that I find too complicated for posting, (3) and disinterest in the various “brouhahas” and “kerfuffles” that are going on right now.

I anticipate that once I've sorted through some of the complicated things referenced in (2), I'll start posting more on the various sites with which I'm affiliated.

-wrb

Selfishly convenient.

David Foster Wallace’s penchant for footnoting makes him a little bit hard to excerpt, but I’m going to use an asterisk to represent what is a numbered footnote in the text:

Is it possible that future generations will regard our present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Mengele’s experiments? My own initial reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme — and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human beings;* and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I haven’t succeeded in working out any kind of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.

* Meaning a lot less important, apparently, since the moral comparison here is not the value of one human’s life vs. the value of one animal’s life, but rather the value of one animal’s life vs. the value of one human’s taste for a particular kind of protein. Even the most diehard carniphile will acknowledge that it’s possible to live and eat well without consuming animals.

-David Foster Wallace, “Consider the Lobster.” Consider the Lobster. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2006. (253)

Yeah… pretty much. I am so far from a moral example on this one.

UPDATE: Bought myself some couscous. Felt no guilt when I ate it. (Couscous isn't made from animals, right?)

DFW's cultural pessimism.

Infinite Jest was the first thing I read by David Foster Wallace. I think it was back in the summer of 2004. It was only years later that I got around to any of his other work. Flipping through Consider the Lobster today made me realize that DFW really earned his take on American culture. He went on the cruise, he interviewed the right-wing radio jock, he sat through the porn awards, he got out there and mixed it up. (Although perhaps he only got this kind of access after he'd written his big book…) At any rate, I think a second trip through Infinite Jest will be pretty rewarding once I've read a bit more of the non-fiction.

I'm usually inclined to speculate from the comfort of a comfy chair whenever I can. But there's a good case to be made that comfy-chair critics should be ignored whenever possible.