Election fever is in the air and all the buzzwords are out: Hogwash, Poppycock, Balderdash, Piffle, Claptrap… Fortunately, the English language has almost as many words for nonsense as it does for rain. I could go on.
OK, I will. Drivel, Bunkum, Twaddle, Baloney, Tripe, Rot, Flannel, plus a couple more involving bulls and balls.
The thing about these words is that over time they’ve all melded into one homogenous mass with the same meaning, and because they’re mostly quite comical words, it’s easy to assume they were made up from nowhere, just to sound as daft as the nonsense they describe. But last week, on a seven-and-a-half-hour crawl through the car park that is the country’s motorway system, desperation drove me into the arms of a political podcast, from which I received a revelation.
Claptrap, I discovered, isn’t just a nonsense word like flimflam, or pifflepuffle, or winklepinkle or any of those other words that Shakespeare or JK Rowling might have invented. Claptrap, ladies and gentlemen (and shoot me dead if you already figured this out), is a trap for claps.
Originating in 18th century theatre, it was a linguistic trick designed to catch applause. In other words, showy, frivolous language that carries no genuine weight but does elicit the putting together of hands. Ever watched a party conference speech? That sort of thing.
The shame of this revelation is that we now have to be more selective in how we use our nonsense synonyms. Hogwash? Slops fed to pigs. Slops they may be but pigs? Us? And what about balderdash? An unappealing, frothy mixture. That could apply to the entire House of Commons.
If claptrap isn’t general nonsense but specifically cheap language to catch applause, we might need to invent some new words for other political cobblers. ‘Cornerscorner’ – an attempt to wriggle out of answering a difficult question. ‘Blunderchunder’ – the spouting of personal opinions that ruin your political career. ‘Mirage’ – the Reform UK leader’s view of the truth.
Feel free to add your own.
