Boondoggle Origin

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, good afternoon. This is Andrew Smith from Annandale, Virginia.

Hey, Andrew, welcome.

What can we do for you, Andrew?

So I have a question for you both, and it started with a conversation I was having with a colleague at work.

We were talking about a business trip that this colleague was planning, and I made the offhanded comment.

I said, is this really a business trip? It sounds like a boondoggle to me, which prompted the question,

Why does everybody say boondoggle when you’re referring to a business trip that has no purpose?

So it sparked a little bit of debate in the office.

I actually happened to have a dictionary of etymology at my desk.

So I was like, let me see the origin of the word boondoggle.

And at least from what I saw, it could be like a braided leather strap,

Which still left me flummoxed as to the core of the question,

Which is why do we refer to boondoggle as a business trip with no purpose when it seems to have some other origins?

How did this word evolve and where does it come from?

Yeah, how did we get from a braided leather strap to a useless work trip that you’re taking just for the heck of it?

Our colleagues at the American Dialect Society spend a lot of time finding first uses of words.

And I did a little bit with boondoggle myself.

And a bunch of us have uncovered some uses of the word from 1927 that I think are very instructive here.

It’s clear from the uses in the newspaper, this is in New York State, that they’re referring to a scout newsletter, like a Boy Scout troop has its own newsletter.

And the newsletter is called the Boondoggle.

The reason it’s called the Boondoggle is because there was a fellow around about 1925 when his son was born.

And his name is Robert Link.

And Robert called his son Boondoggle.

And then later he took the word or the name boondoggle and used it to refer to these leather

Woven lanyards that you make when you’re a boy scout or a cub scout. Do you know what I’m talking

About? They’re kind of useless. You maybe wear them on your neck and they have a design on them

Or you use them as a key fob to put your keys on or something else but they’re kind of really just

Make work something to keep the kids busy to practice their leather craft you know cutting

And stamping and braiding and that sort of stuff,

But really nothing you would ever buy for yourself in the store, not usually.

And then around 1935, this word broke big.

It had its moment.

This is the star-is-born moment for boondoggle.

In a discussion of public relief in New York City,

Somebody called the whole project, the whole spending of this money,

A big boondoggle.

And by that, he meant a waste, a waste of time, a waste of effort, a waste of money.

And in that sense, he kept that notion that this braided leather type lanyard thing was really kind of just make work and useless and a waste of time and a waste of money.

And so that sense of waste or unnecessary expenditure is what has stayed with Boondoggle all these years.

So when we talk about some kind of public works where they’re building a bridge to nowhere, that’s a boondoggle.

We’re talking about a trip that you don’t really need to take, but to say you have money in the budget, so you’re just going to spend it.

That’s a boondoggle.

So that sense of unnecessary expenditures is really what’s held on all these years back since the 1920s.

Wow.

That’s really fascinating.

And I do think it helps, like, not to extend the metaphor, but to tie it all together.

Tie it all together.

Yeah.

Andrew, we should probably also point out Grant mentioned that Scoutmaster Link, Robert Link, called his son Boondoggle.

That wasn’t his real name.

No, it was his big name.

Yeah, he named him Robert Link Jr.

Yeah, it was his pet name.

Now, I should also note, just because I can hear people warming up their hands about to pound on their keyboards,

There are a lot of other theories about Boondoggle.

And trust me, they have all been looked at and examined thoroughly by word historians and people like me.

I’ve done some of it myself.

And none of the other theories, including the Daniel Boone one, including the one about the Scots language, including about the name for a kind of marble, none of them hold water.

None of them have evidence.

None of them have the least bit of support.

So the only one that we know is this story from the 1920s that came out of the Boy Scouts and the weaving of lanyards.

That’s fascinating.

Well, I’m so appreciative that you all looked into it because it’s been the source of a lot of debate.

And I mean, quite frankly, I like told some of the people we had this big debate in the office.

And I said, well, it just so happened I positioned it A Way with Words.

And everybody was like, you have to tell us what they say.

I listen to that show.

So it’ll be nice to have this settled very matter of factly by by you all who are experts.

Outstanding.

Andrew, thank you for your call. We really appreciate it.

Thank you for taking the time. It’s been a pleasure.

All right. Take care.

Thanks, Andrew.

Bye.

Bye now.

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