BULLSHIT stamp on the desk of a street photographer

''Bullshit'' (also ''bullshite'' or ''bullcrap'') is a common

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

expletive which may be shortened to the

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

''bull'' or the

initialism An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

B.S. In

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...

, "

bollocks ''Bollocks'' () is a word of Middle English origin, meaning "testicles". The word is often used figuratively in British English and Hiberno-English in a multitude of negative ways; it most commonly appears as a noun meaning "rubbish" or "nonsen ...

" is a comparable expletive. It is mostly a

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...

term and a

profanity Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, rud ...

which means "

nonsense Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have u ...

", especially as a rebuke in response to communication or actions viewed as deceptive, misleading, disingenuous, unfair or false. As with many expletives, the term can be used as an

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...

, or as many other

parts of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...

, and can carry a wide variety of meanings. A person who excels at communicating nonsense on a given subject is sometimes referred to as a "bullshit artist" instead of a "liar." In philosophy and psychology of

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, though ...

the term "bullshit" is sometimes used to specifically refer to statements produced without particular concern of truth, to distinguish from a deliberate, manipulative

lie A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving or misleading someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. Lies can be inter ...

intended to subvert the truth.On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit
Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr, Derek J. Koehler, Jonathan A. Fugelsang, Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2015, pp. 549-563 In business and management, guidance for comprehending, recognizing, acting on and preventing bullshit, are proposed for stifling the production and spread of this form of misrepresentation in the workplace, media and society. Within organizations bullshitting is considered to be a social practice that people engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity. Research has also produced the Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale (OBPS) that reveals three factors of organizational bullshit (regard for truth, the boss, and bullshit language) that can be used to gauge perceptions of the extent of organizational bullshit that exists in a workplace. The word is generally used in a depreciatory sense, but it may imply a measure of respect for language skills or frivolity, among various other benign usages. In

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

, Harry Frankfurt, among others, analyzed the concept of ''bullshit'' as related to, but distinct from, lying; the liar tells untruth, the bullshitter aims to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true—it may be. As an exclamation, "Bullshit!" conveys a measure of dissatisfaction with something or someone, but this usage need not be a comment on the

truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belief ...

of the matter.

Etymology

"Bull", meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century, while the term "bullshit" has been used as early as 1915 in British and American

, and came into popular usage only during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The word "bull" itself may have derived from the

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

''bole'' meaning "fraud, deceit". The term "horseshit" is a near synonym. An occasionally used

South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding o ...

equivalent, though more common in

Australian slang Australian English is a major variety of the English language spoken throughout Australia. Most of the vocabulary of Australian English is shared with British English, though there are notable differences. The vocabulary of Australia is drawn ...

, is "

bull dust Bulldust or bull dust is a fine, soft and powdery red aeolian dust that is common across Australia, especially in the Outback and desert. Bulldust is a type of fugitive dust that when disturbed can have dangerous effects. Bulldust is common on ...

". Although there is no confirmed etymological connection, these older meanings are synonymous with the modern expression "bull", generally considered and used as a contraction of "bullshit". Another proposal, according to the lexicographer

Eric Partridge Eric Honeywood Partridge (6 February 1894 – 1 June 1979) was a New Zealand– British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps an ...

, is that the term was popularized by the Australian and New Zealand troops from about 1916 arriving at the front during World War I. Partridge claims that the British commanding officers placed emphasis on ''bull''; that is, attention to appearances, even when it was a hindrance to waging war. The Diggers allegedly ridiculed the British by calling it bullshit.

In the philosophy of truth and rhetoric

Assertions of fact

"Bullshit" is commonly used to describe statements made by people concerned with the response of the audience rather than with truth and accuracy. On one prominent occasion, the word itself was part of a controversial advertisement. During the 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, the Citizens Party candidate

Barry Commoner Barry Commoner (May 28, 1917 – September 30, 2012) was an American cellular biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He was the director of the ...

ran a radio advertisement that began with an actor exclaiming: "Bullshit! Carter,

Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

and Anderson, it's all bullshit!" NBC refused to run the advertisement because of its use of the expletive, but Commoner's campaign successfully appealed to the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

to allow the advertisement to run unedited.

Harry Frankfurt's concept

In his essay '' On Bullshit'' (originally written in 1986, and published as a monograph in 2005), philosopher Harry Frankfurt of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress: Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian- British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is consi ...

's disdain of "non-sense" talk, and with the popular concept of a "bull session" in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of "bullshit" in modern society upon

anti-realism In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument ...

and upon the growing frequency of situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without appropriate knowledge of the subject matter. Several political commentators have seen that Frankfurt's concept of bullshit provides insights into political campaigns. Gerald Cohen, in "Deeper into Bullshit", contrasted the kind of "bullshit" Frankfurt describes with a different sort: nonsense discourse presented as sense. Cohen points out that this sort of bullshit can be produced either accidentally or deliberately. While some writers do deliberately produce bullshit, a person can also aim at sense and produce nonsense by mistake; or a person deceived by a piece of bullshit can repeat it innocently, without intent to deceive others. Cohen gives the example of

Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...

's "Transgressing the Boundaries" as a piece of ''deliberate'' bullshit. Sokal's aim in creating it, however, was to show that the "postmodernist" editors who accepted his paper for publication could not distinguish nonsense from sense, and thereby by implication that their field was "bullshit".

David Graeber's theory of bullshit work in the modern economy

Anthropologist David Graeber's book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive.

Education and reasoning as immunization against bullshit

Brandolini's law, also known as the “bullshit asymmetry principle,” holds that “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than what’s needed to produce it.” This truism highlights that while the battle against misinformation more generally must be fought “face to face,” the larger war against belief in misinformation won’t be won without prevention. Once people are set in their ways, beliefs are notoriously hard to change. Building immunity against false beliefs in the first place is the more effective long-term strategy. Almost 20 years before Dr. Frankfurt, NYU professor

Neil Postman Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, educator, media theorist and cultural critic, who eschewed digital technology, including personal computers, mobile devices, and cruise control in cars, and was critical ...

gave a talk entitled, “Bullshit and the Art of Crap Detection” at the 1969 National Convention for Teachers of English in Washington DC. He started by telling his audience that “helping kids to activate their crap-detectors should take precedence over any other legitimate educational aim." University of Washington biologist

Carl Bergstrom Carl Theodore Bergstrom is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Bergstrom is a critic of low-quality or misleading scientific research. He is the co-author of a book o ...

and professor Jevin West started teaching “data reasoning in a digital world” within a college course they called “Calling Bullshit.” They then launched the Calling Bullshit website and published a book with the same title.

As an object of psychological research

While Dr. Frankfurt sparked the academic study of bullshit and bullshitting, few have advanced our knowledge of “bullshittees”, those who consume bullshit, more than

University of Regina The University of Regina is a public university, public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the Unive ...

psychology professor Dr. Gordon Pennycook. He and his colleagues won the 2016

Ig Nobel Prize The Ig Nobel Prize ( ) is a satiric prize awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Its aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The name o ...

(for

Peace Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

) for developing a questionnaire designed to quantify receptiveness to a particular kind of bullshit that they called “pseudoprofound bullshit." Wake Forest University psychologists found evidence to support that beyond the Dunning-Kruger effect (unwarranted high self-confidence), bullshitting tends to happen when there’s social pressure to provide an opinion and a social “pass” that will allow someone to get away with it. Psychology research from Yale University demonstrated that the Dunning-Kruger effect is amplified by access to the internet: we tend to conflate the ability to look up information on the internet with actual personal knowledge. Social media also offers an environment that combines the social pressure to bullshit with an anonymity that provides the social “pass.” In 2018, education experts from Queen’s University in Belfast summed it up this way: “…along with a pervasive and balkanized social media ecosystem and high internet immersion, public life provides abundant opportunities to bullshit and lie on a scale we could have scarcely credited 30 years ago.” Psychologists at Vanderbilt University, Duke University and University of North Carolina researched the

Illusory truth effect The illusory truth effect (also known as the illusion of truth effect, validity effect, truth effect, or the reiteration effect) is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. This phenomenon was first identi ...

, or the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. The listener is likely to let it override their prior knowledge on the subject and believe it. Research by psychologists at the University of Waterloo tested the familiar adage that “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.” To do so, they explored correlations between a scale that measures “bullshitting” (the Bullshitting Frequency Scale or BFS) and a scale that measures “bullshit receptivity” (the Bullshit Receptivity Scale or BRS) and found that higher scores on the former were correlated with higher scores on the latter. In other words, those who are most likely to bullshit are in turn more likely to believe bullshit, suggesting that you can indeed bullshit a bullshitter after all.

In everyday language

Outside of the

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

world, among

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

speakers of

North American English North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), ...

, as an

adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...

, ''bullshit'' conveys general displeasure, an objection to, or points to unfairness within, some state of affairs. This

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conve ...

usage of "bullshit", which began in the 20th century, "bullshit" does not give a truth score to another's discourse. It simply labels something that the speaker does not like & feels he is unable to change. In the colloquial English of the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

area, "bullshit" can be used as an adjective to communicate that one is angry or upset, for example, "I was wicked bullshit after someone parked in my spot".

In popular culture

* The Showtime TV series '' Penn & Teller: Bullshit!'' debunks many common beliefs and often criticizes specific people's comments.

Penn Jillette Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author, best known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. The duo has been featured i ...

stated the name was chosen because you could be sued for saying someone is a liar, but not if you said they were talking bullshit. * A running joke in the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

series The Last Leg is that the host, Adam Hills, has a series of "bullshit buttons" on his desk that are pressed whenever an appropriate event occurs. Upon doing so, the speaker system will play the word "bullshit". These are normally programmed with the voices of celebrity guests, except for the "People's Bullshit Button", which is programmed with the collective voices of a past audience. * Wooden versions of the

Trammel of Archimedes A trammel of Archimedes is a mechanism that generates the shape of an ellipse. () It consists of two shuttles which are confined ("trammeled") to perpendicular channels or rails and a rod which is attached to the shuttles by pivots at fixed pos ...

are sold as novelty items under the name of bullshit grinders. File:Broken cup (23942529439).jpg, Novelty cup File:Disposable bullshit bag (8140585421).jpg, Novelty bag

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Eliot, T. S. (1997). ''Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917''. Harcourt. * – Harry Frankfurt's detailed analysis of the concept of bullshit. * * Holt, Jim,
Say Anything
', one of his ''Critic At Large'' essays from ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', (August 22, 2005) * – Halifax academic Laura Penny's study of the phenomenon of bullshit and its impact on modern society. * Weingartner, C.. "Public doublespeak: every little movement has a meaning all of its own". ''College English'', Vol. 37, No. 1 (Sep., 1975), pp. 54–61.

External links

* * {{Disinformation English profanity Feces Interjections Deception English words