Ruth from Hanover, New Hampshire, asks about “Balderdash!”, the dismissive outburst for claims that sound like nonsense. The word’s ancestry remains uncertain, despite old attempts to link it with Danish, Icelandic, German, Dutch, Welsh, or Gaelic forms. Its earliest recorded uses point instead to messy, foamy mixtures — beer with buttermilk, brandy with ale, even lather — before the meaning shifted toward a confused jumble of speech or writing. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Balderdash Once Meant a Frothy Mixture of Liquids”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi!
Hello there, who’s this?
Well, this is Ruth Harvey from Hanover, New Hampshire.
Hi, Ruth, welcome to the show.
What can we help you with?
Well, I just do a lot of reading, and I have for many years used the expression, boulder dash, when somebody says something to me that I cannot really believe that was true, especially when my children come up with a long story about something.
Then I say balderdash.
I love the way you said that, Ruth, balderdash, with a lot of scorn in that first vowel.
Well, I just wonder where it came from.
A lot of times you think about it as a big sailor, captain on the seas or something like that, and wonder, well, what is it?
Well, it comes from a teacher in New Hampshire.
No, I’m kidding.
Oh, you’re kidding.
He is kidding.
That’s balderdash.
I was trying to get you to say it, Ruth.
That’s balderdash, yeah.
Yeah, I can tell Grant’s totally charmed by the way you say that.
But, yes, etymologists are wondering where it comes from as well.
It’s a tough one.
It’s stumped a lot of researchers.
Oh, yeah.
How many languages have they connected to?
Oh, my gosh.
Danish, Icelandic, German, Dutch, Welsh, Gaelic.
Yeah, but not really with any good evidence.
I mean, the best evidence that we have about the word is that the earliest recorded uses of it in the 16th and 17th century refer to a kind of frothy mixture, a frothy liquid, like a mixture of beer and wine or buttermilk and beer.
And isn’t one of the early ones referred to the barber’s cream as a balderdash?
Oh, I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So some kind of mixture, which sort of makes sense.
Yeah.
So it’s messed up.
It’s all kind of, yeah, not clear what’s what.
Well, I can see that if somebody’s going to give you a story about something that’s not exactly true.
So this term pops up in the late 1500s just kind of out of the blue.
And there’s been all this work done, most of it 100 years ago, to try to connect it to other words and other languages.
And most of these connections are really tenuous.
People look at the spelling or the pronunciation and the meanings are kind of vaguely approximate.
And it’s all not very good etymological work at all.
So right now we would probably call this origin unknown, and it really needs to be looked at again.
I mean, I’m waiting for the Oxford English Dictionary to get to Balderdash
And really just re-tackle this etymology and see what they come up with.
Well, it sounds wonderful. I’d like to know when you find it.
Well, I think they’re scheduled to get to Balderdash in 2040, so I’ll let you know.
Well, darn, I don’t think I’ll be here.
Oh, come now!
Well, but it’s a fun word.
And you know what?
I’m really delighted to hear that it’s still in wide use and that somebody like you is teaching your students because it is one of these really expressive words that we should never discard.
It’s glorious.
I love it.
Oh, I love the word.
And I, not long ago, read in the paper somebody had used the word as something that the editor of the paper allowed in the write-up.
But I don’t remember where it was.
Oh, I should hope so.
Somebody in the sports pages, no doubt.
They get away with so much.
Or the opinion pages.
Ruth, thank you so much for giving us a call.
All right?
All righty.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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