I remember a card game called “Bullshit”. To win you had to be a better liar than everyone else. Sooner or later someone called “Bullshit” and all the cards were on the table. In other words, the truth came out.

Today’s game of Bullshit is a little harder. Finding truth takes a lot more effort. People hide it, distort it, and flat out lie about it. Finding original sources is difficult at best. We no longer can trust journalists to do the digging and report facts with his or her bias in check. I understand that at one time in ancient America, you know, the 20th century, if a reporter was caught with his or her bias showing they would be ousted from the profession–not just the job. No longer is the profession self-regulating.

So back to bullshit.

Wikipedia defines the word as: “It is mostly a slang term and a profanity which means “nonsense”, especially as a rebuke in response to communication or actions viewed as deceptive, misleading, disingenuous, unfair or false.”

Etymonline.com offers some history of the word: “eloquent and insincere rhetoric,” 1915, American English slang; see bull (n.1) + shit (n.), probably because it smells. But bull in the sense of “trivial or false statements” (1914), which usually is associated with this, might be a continuation of Middle English bull “false talk, fraud” (see bull (n.3)).

Deceptive, misleading, unfair, false, and it smells. Yep. BULLSHIT!

Let’s see who smells…