Malarkey Doesnt Mean That

Malarkey Doesnt Mean That Malarkey Doesn’t Mean That Malarkey Doesn’t Mean That By Maeve Maddox In a recent television ad for a cell phone service, potential customers are shown as being afraid of â€Å"hidden fees,† â€Å"funny business,† and â€Å"bamboozling.† The agent asks, â€Å"What is bamboozling?† A potential customer says, â€Å"It’s like malarkey.† The ad bothers me because bamboozling is a gerund and malarkey is an ordinary noun. I’d prefer something like this: Agent: What is bamboozling? Customer: It’s trying to trick us by feeding us a bunch of malarkey. But then, I suppose the extra words would drive up the price of the ad. The verb bamboozle is noted in English as early as 1700, in a Tatler article complaining about the invasion of slang terms. The OED definition of the verb bamboozle is â€Å"to deceive by trickery; to perplex or confuse.† The definition in Merriam-Webster is, â€Å"to conceal one’s true motives from someone, especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end or achieve an advantage.† The first OED citation for malarkey is 1924; the most recent, 2000. It’s defined as â€Å"humbug, bunkum, nonsense.† Malarkey is any idea or utterance seen as â€Å"trivial, misleading, or not worthy of consideration.† M-W defines malarkey as â€Å"insincere or pretentious talk or writing designed to impress one and usually to distract attention from ulterior motives or actual conditions.† A person intent on bamboozling someone might employ malarkey in the effort to deceive, but bamboozling and malarkey are not quite synonyms. Synonyms for the verb bamboozle: trick deceive delude hoodwink mislead take in dupe fool double-cross cheat defraud swindle gull hoax entrap con bilk shaft flimflam Synonyms for the noun malarkey: rubbish gibberish claptrap balderdash hogwash baloney rot moonshine garbage jive tripe drivel bull bunk/bunkum BS hokum twaddle gobbledygook Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Spelling Test 15 Lessons for Mixing Past and Present TenseUlterior and Alterior