One of the common rumors of the twenty-first century is that there may be some misinformation on the internet, and, even worse, this misinformation is cited in Congress, repeated in the news media, and pontificated by politicians and pundits. This misinformation ranges from the ridiculous—the IRS has brown shirts who are going to take your guns away and force you to sign up for Obamacare—to the scientifically illiterate—there’s a cabal of evil scientists who are making up reports about global warming so that they can get rich—to the innocuous—the government doesn’t make money. This means that there is a need to debunk this misinformation.
All of this brings up the question of etymology: where does “debunk” come from? The answer below the squiggle.
The word “debunk” is obviously made up of the stem “bunk” and the prefix “de” which means “to remove”. The real question is where did “bunk” come from?
“Bunk” comes from the place where a lot of bunk comes from: the United States House of Representatives. In the 16th Congress (1819-1821), Felix Walker represented a district in western North Carolina, a district which included Buncombe County. This was back in the days when Representatives were actually present in the House and listened to the speeches given by other Representatives. Representative Walker carried on with a dull speech which his colleagues in the House protested. He later explained this dull speech by saying that he felt obligated “to make a speech for Buncombe.” Thus “Buncombe” became “Bunkum” when it was used in 1828 to indicate empty talk. “Bunkum” was later shortened to “bunk” and became synonymous with “claptrap.”
Walker, a Democrat-Republican (that was the name of what would become the Democratic Party), served three terms in the House. He was first elected in 1816 and he was defeated in his bid for a fourth term in 1822. When he rose to speak in 1820 the question was whether to admit Missouri to the Union as a free state or a slave state. It was the first time he had spoken on this subject and his talk was long and wearisome. He was shouted down by his colleagues, but persisted in his efforts to “make a speech for Buncombe.”
As we have come to expect with the speed of things (bunk?) coming out of Congress, the word “debunk” did not emerge for a century. Its first recorded use is in 1923.