malarkey
English translation: stuff and nonsense
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| 03:29 Oct 14, 2002 |
| English language (monolingual) [PRO] Art/Literary | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Margaret Schroeder Mexico Local time: 00:21 | ||||||
Grading comment
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| SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED | ||||
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| 5 +5 | Origin unknown |
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| 1 +1 | I always thought it was an Irish word. |
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Answers
7 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +5
peer agreement (net): +5Origin unknown Explanation: According to two respected sources, this is a 20th century word of unknown origin. Odd. malarkey n. malarkey n. colloq. humbug; nonsense. 20th c.: orig. unkn. The Oxford English Reference Dictionary malarkey n. malarkey n. colloq. humbug; nonsense. [origin unknown] The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English ----- Still, you can find other theories, such as this explanation from the second reference below: "The origin of the term Malarkey is something of a mystery. All major authorities draw a blank. The term first appeared in America in the 1920's, but there is no clear connection to any other word in the English Language. The eminent British etymologist Eric Partridge suspected that it might be from the Greek word "malakia", Partridge's successor makes note of a London Cockney slang term, "Madam Misharty", which means roughly the same thing as Malarkey, and may be based on a real person, in this case thought to be a fortune-teller in London, England. If we had to take a guess, we would say that Malarkey is most likely a Cockney word based on someone notorious at the time for fraud and chicanery. But we just like it because it's fun to say." Reference: http://www.xrefer.com/results.jsp?shelf=&term=malarkey&Submi... Reference: http://www.malarkeylounge.com/ |
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