Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504180006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ ``Despite the difficulties, the first colonists were perennially fascinated by the Indian tongues, partly no doubt because they were exotic, but also because they had a beauty that was irresistible. William Penn wrote, `I know not a language spoken in Europe, that hath words of more sweetness or greatness, in accent or emphasis, than theirs.' And he was right. You have only to list a handful of Indian place names - Mississippi, Susquehanna, Rappahannock - to see that Indians found a poetry in the American landscape that has all too often eluded those who displaced them.''
\ ``When, in about 1820, a congressman named Felix Walker was accused of speaking drivel - which, evidently, he was - he replied that he was speaking to the people of Buncombe County, North Carolina, his district. Almost immediately his congressional colleagues began referring to any political claptrap or bombast as `speaking to Buncombe.' Soon the phrase had spread beyond Washington and was being abbreviated to buncombe, often respelled bunkum, and eventually further contracted to bunk. Debunk did not come until 1927. Bunkum in turn begat hokum - a blend of hocus and bunkum. Thus with a single fatuous utterance, the forgotten Felix Walker managed to inspire half a page of dictionary entries.''
\ ``As the (movie) industry evolved through the 1920s and 1930s, still more words were created to describe the types of films Hollywood was making - cliffhangers, weepies, sobbies and tearjerkers, spine-chillers, Westerns, serials - and to denote the types of roles on offer. A character who wept freely was a tear bucket. An actress in a melodrama was a finger-wringer. A villain was, of course, a baddie. Sexy actresses were, by 1933, known as bombshells.''
by CNB