From an alternate application of the term, Hogwash has also been connected with the popular phrase "sh** hitting the fan" due to the close relationship between swine and their general lack of sanitation, as well as the actual process of washing a pig for the same reason. While it is most often used in conversation, it can also represent the natural phenomenon also known as pig rain, in which pigs, which until recently have been flying due to someone's overuse of crap, collect to form a cloud and fall back to the earth. It was first isolated in 1502AD by the 53rd incarnation of the Bhudda, but in more modern history has been produced with industrial capacity by reducing a solution of humor and wit in a solvent rich in the potent element human stupidity. The term hogwash has a very rich etymological history, owing its frequent inclusion as a catch phrase in popular culture and dialogue to its overpowering presence on Earth, the Moon, and several orbiting comets in our Solar System.
While similar in structure (some consider it isometric with poppycock), it is not to be confused with either of the above, nor is it to be categorized with the universal elements Fluffiness, Holiness, and Evilness. It is third in line of prevalence behind crap and tedium and before the fourth most common element poppycock. Nor is it linked to the sense of cock for rubbish (as in phrases like that’s a load of old cock), as that’s a shortened form of cock and bull story, which comes from a fable concerning a bull and a cockerel.Hogwash is one of the most abundant elements in the known Universe. The first half of the word is the Dutch pop for a doll, which may be related to our term of endearment, poppet the second half is essentially the same as the old English cack for excrement the verb form of this word is older than the noun, and has been recorded as far back as the fifteenth century.ĭespite some uninformed speculation, there’s no link with the vulgar meaning of cock. The word was presumably taken to the USA by Dutch settlers the scatological associations were lost when the word moved into the English-language community. It says firmly “no such word appears to be attested in Dutch” but points to the very similar word poppekak, which appears only in the old set phrase zo fijn als gemalen poppekak, meaning to show excessive religious zeal, but which literally means “as fine as powdered doll shit”. The OED is firm in dismissing one often-heard view of its origin, from the Dutch word pappekak for soft faeces.
And most of the citations for it in the Oxford English Dictionary are from British sources.īut, as the OED reminds us, the word is actually American in origin, first turning up there about 1852.
It feels very English: think of elderly ex-Indian-Army colonels in retirement in Tunbridge Wells exploding in wrath over some supposed mismanagement of the country’s affairs and writing disgusted letters to The Times about it. It’s a fine-sounding expletive - meaning nonsense or rubbish - but hardly heard on anybody’s lips these days, and rather dated.
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