Did You Know?

Many people remember knowing that Henry Ford declared "History is bunk." However, it could be that this simple quotation is itself bunk.

What the automobile manufacturer actually said, in reference to the armistice that ended the first World War, is

"I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world. History is more or less bunk. It is tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today."

So where does bunk come from? From Buncombe County, North Carolina. Back in 1845, Congressman Felix Walker (whose district includes Buncombe County) made an impressively irrelevant speech to Congress. When questioned about the irrelevance of his discourse, Walker defended himself by asserting that he was speaking to the people of Buncumbe.

Regardless of whether Walker's colleagues believed him, in no time at all bunkum (usually spelled a bit differently than the county) became a byword for "insincere or foolish talk; nonsense." And by the end of the 19th century, bunkum had been shortened to bunk.

By the way, you can now guess the meaning of the English expression "to debunk" - which means to expose a falsehood or a lie.