I’m reading lots of student reports these days (their exams are coming up soon), and in one I found a very interesting word: balderdash. Not quite knowing the meaning of it (I know it’s a game, but from the context it wasn’t the game that was talked about) I looked it up, and from Weird Words I found a funny little quote from the 1766: That which is made by the peasants, both red and white, is generally genuine: but the wine-merchants of Nice brew and balderdash, and even mix it with pigeons’ dung and quick-lime. This adjective is also used as a verb, in addition to the substantive being the game.

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