- Bullshit is also the name of a card game, and a TV show.
Bullshit (often abbreviated BS or shortened to bull in order to be less vulgar) is a common English expletive meaning "humbug" or "nonsense." It implies that the purveyor of alleged nonsense is willfully lying, or that he/she is speaking boldly from ignorance.
Because it contains shit, the term is considered foul language.
Etymology
It may be assumed to be a simple English-language invention, referring to the feces of bulls (male cattle). The word shit (a vulgar term for faeces) is often used for something unpleasant; bullshit, horseshit (see below), and chickenshit have come informally to mean different unpleasant things.
An alternative claim is that its origins come from early Chinese immigrants to the United States, from the statement 不是 (bu1 shi4 in Mandarin, like "sure") meaning "not so," though most early immigrant Chinese spoke the Cantonese mmm hai or in Taishanese mmm si. This theory is unlikely at best, since Mandarin-speaking immigrants were rare when this term entered use.
The uses of bullshit
Bullshit is commonly employed in situations where truth and accuracy are far less important than the ability to achieve a suitable response in the audience. In many cases, such a response is the gaining of popularity or favour (often needed in politics, religion or advertising).
More mundane examples of bullshit often involve the lives of ordinary people. For example, it is not at all uncommon to hear of somebody "bullshitting" a job interview, or attributing their performance in an examination to their ability to bullshit. In this sense, bullshitting walks the line between extemporaneous speaking and lying outright.
The "bullshitter" generally either knows the statements are false or has no interest in their factual accuracy one way or the other. "Talking bullshit" is thus a lesser form of lying, and is likely to elicit a correspondingly weaker emotional response: whereas an obvious liar may be greeted with outrage or anger, an exponent of bullshit tends to be dismissed with an indifferent sneer.
Sometimes called "shooting the shit", bullshit can also be the act of having a very casual conversation with little value.
Bullshit is also used in the popular saying "money talks, bullshit walks" meaning that people who "do something" will get more results than people who merely talk.
The word horseshit is often used in vulgar slang as a synonym for bullshit to refer to nonsense. The usage of horseshit differs slightly from bullshit. People may refer to their own statements and presentations as bullshit, as in the traditional folk saying, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit." Horseshit is much less likely in this context. A self-professed "bullshit artist" seeks to gain the favour of his audience by flattery and telling them what they want to hear in highfalutin' tones. "Horseshit!" is the dismissive cry of the unimpressed audience.
For example, "Nobody said that there was anything wrong with you expressing your opinion, but it was pointed out that the opinion you choose to hold on the matter is horseshit."
Arguably the best popular use of horseshit was in the movie Big Trouble in Little China:
- "No horseshit, Wang?"
- "No horseshit, Jack."
The following paragraph is an example of bullshit. Horseshit is sibilant, euphonious, concentrated, well-formed and pungent, whereas bullshit is flat and featureless (and hackneyed by careless usage). Bullshit is used in a trite and generalized pejorative manner; horseshit is more specific and more insulting. The sibilance connotes action, akin to spitting or pissing.
See also
External link
- On Bullshit (http://www.jelks.nu/misc/articles/bs.html): Philosopher Harry Frankfurt has undertaken a detailed ordinary language analysis of the concept of bullshit.
| 
