Tuesday, December 15, 2009

boondoggle


One of those words that I felt perfectly sure I knew the meaning of, if somewhat vaguely. However, a line in William Boyd's new novel Ordinary Thunderstorms made me suspect that I'd gotten the thing entirely backwards. Of course, I can't find the line to save my life now, but that's probably just as well, as it might lay my doubts to rest prematurely. It could, after all, have been a mere misreading.

Here's what I thought a boondoggle was--something you get stuck in, like a quagmire, or stuck with, like a piece of real estate in a swamp. But my reading of Boyd's sentence makes me think that a boondoggle is really more of a bonanza, a goldmine. Very far from my interpretation.

I have no idea where this word comes from--it sounds like something that came out of the South, which probably means it didn't. It's a great word, though, and I intend to use it more often. At least, once I know what I'm really saying...

Okay, neither what I thought it meant or what I thought Boyd meant are right, but I am sure Boyd did use it correctly in a sentence. It means "an unnecessary or wasteful project or activity". Coined by a Boy Scout scoutmaster, Robert Link, it refers back to objects made of braided cord or leather, which the scouts wore as kerchief ties, hat bands or other decorations. I am not sure if Link understood the satiric use of the word or not when he coined it. I'm guessing probably not. I don't have the sense that the Scouts were all that big on making fun of themselves.

A nice article from ZDNet actually vindicates me a bit, or at least helps me understand my miscomprehension. It mentions that the word was first used after the big government jobs programs that attempted to remedy aspects of the Great Depression. So there is a sense in it of massive projects, which, of course from some points of view are bound to look like a huge waste of time and money. We may have some boondoggles of our own in the near future, come to think of it.

The ZDNet article says that a distinguishing feature of a boondoggle is that at some point there is a realization that the project is not ever going to work, but that the project continues forward for a long time, despite this realization on the part of some. That site has a link to this article which lays out the etymology very well.

But to summarize. Sometimes, a boondoggle is only a lanyard. And sometimes, a boondoggle is a massive, incompetent endeavor by the State, the Military, or Big Business that is a huge waste of time and funds, benefiting no one.

Personally, I'll take the lanyard.

37 comments:

  1. A boondoggle is a at least a distant relative of a white elephant, I think.

    A word whose relation to boondoggle is only one of sound: hornswoggle. A colleague sald "hornswoggled" at work last week. I was flabbergasted.

    My v-word is the positive form of a word almost always used only in the comparative. The v-word is oystt.

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  2. Hornswoggle is a good word too. I bet that, as with boondoggle, there is no real language root that can be found--that -oggle ending is just a pleasing sound, apparently.

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  3. Seana

    I always thought it meant something else. I dont know what exactly I thought it meant, but it wasnt that. I may have been getting it mixed up with a widget in my mind, I'm not sure. I suppose thats what I get for being a spide/chav/bogan

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  4. I'm not sure I haven't confused myself further with this post rather than clarified anything much.

    However, in the sense of an enterprise that is seen to be doomed long before it is is ever halted, an independent bookstore seems to be a prime example of the principle.

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  5. "Our Living Language : We do not know the origin of hornswoggle. We do know that it belongs to a group of "fancified" words that were particularly popular in the American West in the 19th century. Hornswoggle is one of the earliest, first appearing around 1829. It is possible that these words were invented to poke fun at the more "sophisticated" East. Some other words of this ilk are absquatulate, also first appearing in the 1820s, skedaddle, first attested in 1861 in Missouri, and discombobulate, first recorded in 1916."
    ================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  6. Nice. Absquatulate is the only one that doesn't currently seem to be with us. It's funny that these words come about through a kind of reverse snobbism. Hornswoggle and skedaddle are words that bring to mind images of The Music Man, which may or may not have used them. But they are definitely Gary, Indiana kinds of words. 1829 surprises me a bit, though.

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  7. Yep, they sound like tall-tale sorts of words.

    My v-word is fine name for a product that concentrates all your cleaning tasks in a single, powerful stringy-headed appliance: monomop

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  8. Hmm, one of those words is so thoroughly a part of American speech that it has gone through
    humorous mutations of its own, as at Milwaukee’s airport.

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  9. Well, I'd buy a monomop, for sure.

    Oddly enough, I not only was under that sign in the recent past, but actually did a post around it here.

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  10. I found it! You know, when I saw that sign in Milwaukee las month, I vaguely recalled having heard something about such a sign. Now I know where.

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  11. Merry Christmas, Seana!

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  12. Buon Natale to you too, Marco!

    (Yeah, I had to look it up.)

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  13. I never heard the word boondoggle until I began working at my current job. They seem to think it means when someone misses work for no good reason ... like a mental health day off or sneaking to the beach or a job interview with another company, etc. We have a board where we post reason someone is out with printed magnets that say "ill" and "vacation". Someone made a hand-made magnet that says "boondoggle" and jokingly puts it up when someone calls in sick,as to indicate they think they are really out for another reason.

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  14. That's quite intereresting, Anon. My theory is that with made up words, as 'boondoggle' seems to be, the lack of a real root means that people can stray further and further afield in their definitions. It's less likely than more traditional words that someone is going to say, hey, you got that wrong.

    The use you mention seems to connect to the unnecessary or wasteful activity idea.

    Unless it's supposed to mean, "off productively making lanyards".

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  15. That use of boondoggle could be an example of language change happening before our eyes, or before anonymous' eyes, at any rate.
    ================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  16. The funny thing is that I feel like there is a word for what boondoggle is supposed to signify here, some slangy thing, but I can't quite catch it. And maybe it will turn out to be just boondoggle.

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  17. I love the word discombobulate and have used it many a time. Love too the fact that it was made up in an attempt to counter snobbish vocabulary. As if one could add to language by making something up. Very political. I wonder if the current and new meaning to the word Santorum will be looked upon fondly 100 years from now (hint dan savage)?

    signed, sheiler (can't make anon go away)

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  18. Sheiler, much to my embarrassment, Rick Santorum appears as a guest columnist in my newspaper. I also know Dan Savage's work, and I can well imagine that Santorum is not a compliment in his lexicon.
    ================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  19. Oh, how nice it's you, Sheiler.

    Another confession of ignorance--I don't really know Rick Santorum except as a name, so I don't really know what you guys are talking about.

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  20. Peter, how is Rick Santorum's grammar? I have read only a few things of his from way back when I thought that Republicans weren't lock-step nutjobs, and have found his arguments/thesis (what is plural for thesis? Theses?) to lack coherence.

    A bit emotional like numerous articles by George Will - his screed on Allen Ginsberg and poetry in general written in the late 1990s makes him look like a binge drinker without the first drink of the day taking pen to paper.

    Which paper do you work for? The Phila Enquirer?

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  21. Seana,

    If you're terribly bored one day, and have no one looking over your shoulder, perhaps you could google santorum and maybe also savage.

    But only if you're feeling strong. And your time is your own.

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  22. "how is Rick Santorum's grammar?"

    Back when Rick Santorum's column was announced, I sneered that there was no way he'd write it himself. Once I read a few columns, I had no trouble believing he had written them himself.

    Yes, the Philadelphia Inquirer is my newspaper.
    ================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  23. Oh, okay, I see--Santorum's name is all over everything, which is probably why I know it without being able to pin him down.

    Enterprising, enterprising.

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  24. I really liked Philadelphia on my one visit there and enjoyed reading the Inquirer. This was many moons ago. Are you frustrated by the preponderance of bloggers...since you're a journalist, and, well, your industry is going through a change?

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  25. A change is rather a gentle euphemism for what my industry is going through, and bloggers have nothing to do with my frustration. Had Leo Tolstoy said that every unhappy newspaper, rather than family, is unhappy after its own fashion, I'd have agreed with hum.
    ================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  26. I have to say that I love people having separate off topic conversations on my blog. Typical for you, Peter, but a novelty for me. Happy New Year, both of you. And now, back to watching Agatha Christie's 'The Veiled Lady' on PBS.

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  27. Happy New Year to you, too. Are you saying I have trouble sticking to the matter at hand?
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  28. No, I just like when comments follow their own meandering course rather than staying strictly on topic.

    For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about a comic strip that sounds like this word, only to eventually remember that that comic strip was called "Boondocks". I liked it though hadn't actually noticed that it's been gone for some time. And it now leaves the question of whether boondocks and boondoggle are somehow related, or as related as made up words can be.

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  29. Well, this is odd. Because it turns out that 'boondocks' does have a real etymology. It comes from bundok, the Tagalog word for mountain. Now how a Tagalog word becomes part of American slang is a bit of a mystery, but I suppose it was brought back by the GIs after WWII.

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  30. Or after the Spanish-American War.

    And speaking of military words that have entered the larger language, at least tentatively. how about fubar, which I like for its sound and for the delicate way American newspapers misstate what it stands for when they have to explain it?
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  31. Yes, boondocks actually seems to have come in around 1930.

    Snafu is a cousin of fubar, I believe.

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  32. A cousin, though more common in everyday American English, and equally censored by American newspapers.
    ================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  33. sorry, Seana, for OT commentary!!

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  34. No--like I said, I love it. I must, because I'm 'guilty' of it all the time.

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