View source for Bullshit

{{Short description|Slang term for nonsense}}
{{About|the expletive}}
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[[File:Horse trailer - War is Bullshit everywhere-2396.jpg|thumb|A [[horse trailer]] with the words "War is bullshit everywhere"]]
'''''Bullshit''''' (also '''''bullshite''''' or '''''bullcrap''''') is a common [[English language|English]] [[Expletive attributive|expletive]] which may be shortened to the [[euphemism]] '''''bull''''' or the [[initialism]] '''B.S.''' In [[British English]], "[[bollocks]]" is a comparable expletive. It is mostly a [[slang]] term and a [[profanity]] which means "[[nonsense]]", especially as a rebuke in response to communication or actions viewed as [[Deception|deceptive]], misleading, disingenuous, unfair or false. As with many expletives, the term can be used as an [[interjection]], or as many other [[parts of speech]], and can carry a wide variety of [[Meaning (linguistic)|meanings]]. A person who excels at communicating nonsense on a given subject is sometimes referred to as a "bullshit artist" instead of a "liar".<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Heer |first=Jeet |date=2015-12-01 |title=Donald Trump Is Not a Liar |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/124803/donald-trump-not-liar |access-date=2022-03-13 |magazine=[[The New Republic]]}}</ref>

In philosophy and psychology of [[cognition]], the term "bullshit" is sometimes used to specifically refer to statements produced without particular concern for truth, clarity, or meaning, distinguishing "bullshit" from a deliberate, manipulative [[lie]] intended to subvert the truth.<ref name=ppbs>[http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.html "On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit"], Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr, Derek J. Koehler, Jonathan A. Fugelsang. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol.&nbsp;10, No.&nbsp;6, November 2015, pp.&nbsp;549–563.</ref> In business and management, guidance for comprehending, recognizing, acting on and preventing bullshit, are proposed for stifling the production and spread of this form of misrepresentation in the workplace, media and society.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=McCarthy |first1=Ian P. |last2=Hannah |first2=David |last3=Pitt |first3=Leyland F. |last4=McCarthy |first4=Jane M. |date=2020-05-01 |title=Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing with workplace bullshit |url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000768132030001X |journal=Business Horizons |language=en |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=253–263 |doi=10.1016/j.bushor.2020.01.001 |s2cid=214037079 |issn=0007-6813|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Within organizations bullshitting is considered to be a social practice that people engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Spicer |first1=André |title=Playing the Bullshit Game: How Empty and Misleading Communication Takes Over Organizations |journal=Organization Theory |date=4 June 2020 |volume=1 |issue=2 |article-number=2631787720929704 |doi=10.1177/2631787720929704 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Research has also produced the Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale that reveals three factors of organizational bullshit (regard for truth, the boss, and bullshit language) that can be used to gauge perceptions of the extent of organizational bullshit that exists in a workplace.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ferreira |first1=Caitlin |last2=Hannah |first2=David |last3=McCarthy |first3=Ian |last4=Pitt |first4=Leyland |last5=Ferguson |first5=Sarah Lord |title=This Place Is Full of It: Towards an Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale |journal=Psychological Reports |date=3 December 2020 |volume=125 |issue=1 |pages=448–463 |doi=10.1177/0033294120978162 |pmid=33269982 |s2cid=227260056 }}</ref>

The word is generally used in a depreciatory sense, but it may imply a measure of respect for language skills or frivolity, among various other benign usages. In [[philosophy]], [[Harry Frankfurt]], among others, analyzed the concept of ''bullshit'' as related to, but distinct from, [[lie|lying]];<ref name="The Psychology of Bullshit" /> the liar tells untruth, the bullshitter aims to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true—it may be.<ref>{{Cite book |title=On Bullshit |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=30 January 2005 |isbn=9780691122946 |access-date=13 May 2022 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit |last1=Frankfurt |first1=Harry G.}}</ref>

As an exclamation, "Bullshit!" conveys a measure of dissatisfaction with something or someone, but this usage need not be a comment on the [[truth]] of the matter.

==Etymology==
"Bull", meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century, while the term "bullshit" has been used as early as 1915 in British<ref>''Concise Oxford English Dictionary''{{clarify|date=April 2023}}</ref> and American<ref name="etymonline">{{cite web |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bullshit |title=Online Etymology Dictionary |publisher=Etymonline.com |access-date=2011-11-12}}</ref> [[slang]] and came into popular usage only during [[World War&nbsp;II]]. The word "bull" itself may have derived from the [[Old French]] {{lang|fro|bole}}, meaning "fraud, deceit".<ref name="etymonline"/> The term "horseshit" is a near synonym. An occasionally used [[South African English]] equivalent, though more common in [[Australian slang]], is "[[bull dust]]".

Although there is no confirmed etymological connection, these older meanings are synonymous with the modern expression "bull", generally considered and used as a contraction of "bullshit".

Another proposal, according to the lexicographer [[Eric Partridge]], is that the term was popularized by the Australian and New Zealand troops from about 1916 arriving at the front during World War I. Partridge claims that the British commanding officers placed emphasis on ''bull''; that is, attention to appearances, even when it was a hindrance to waging war. The [[Digger (soldier)|Diggers]] allegedly ridiculed the British by calling it bull{{em|shit}}.<ref>{{cite news|author=Peter Hartcher |url=http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/us-looks-down-under-to-stop-poll-rot-20121105-28tz1.html |title=US looks Down Under to stop poll rot |newspaper=[[Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=2012-11-06 |access-date=2013-11-05}}</ref>

==In the philosophy of truth and rhetoric{{anchor|Philosophy}}==

===Assertions of fact===
"Bullshit" is commonly used to describe statements made by people concerned with the response of the audience rather than with truth and accuracy. On one prominent occasion, the word itself was part of a controversial advertisement. During the [[1980 United States presidential election|1980 U.S. presidential campaign]], the [[Citizens Party (United States)|Citizens Party]] candidate [[Barry Commoner]] ran a radio advertisement that began with an actor exclaiming: "Bullshit! [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]], [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] and [[John B. Anderson|Anderson]], it's all bullshit!" [[National Broadcasting Company|NBC]] refused to run the advertisement because of its use of the expletive, but Commoner's campaign successfully appealed to the [[Federal Communications Commission]] to allow the advertisement to run unedited.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tKGXrbaBWEAC&q=Barry+Commoner+Bullshit&pg=PA507| title=Communication Law in America |author=Paul Siegel |publisher=Paul Siegel |pages=507–508 |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7425-5387-3}}</ref>

===Harry Frankfurt's concept===
In his essay ''[[On Bullshit]]'' (originally written in 1986, and published as a monograph in 2005), philosopher [[Harry Frankfurt]] of [[Princeton University]] characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking "to manipulate the opinions and the attitudes of those to whom they speak":<ref name="Frankfurt 2006">{{Cite book |last=Frankfurt |first=Harry |title=On Truth |publisher=Knopf |year=2006 |isbn=9780307264220}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tauroscatology.com/frankfurt.htm |title=Harry Frankfurt on bullshit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050308024618/http://www.tauroscatology.com/frankfurt.htm |archive-date=2005-03-08 |access-date=2013-11-05}}</ref>

{{blockquote|text=It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.}}

Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]]'s disdain of "non-sense" talk and with the popular concept of a "bull session", in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of "bullshit" in modern society upon the (at that time) growing influence of [[postmodernism]] and [[anti-realism]] in academia<ref name="Frankfurt 2006"/> as well as situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without appropriate knowledge of the subject matter.

In his 2006 follow-up book, [[On Truth]], Frankfurt clarified and updated his definition of bullshitters:<ref name="Frankfurt 2006"/>

{{blockquote|text=My claim was that bullshitters, although they represent themselves as being engaged simply in conveying information, are not engaged in that enterprise at all. Instead, and most essentially, they are fakers and phonies who are attempting by what they say to manipulate the opinions and the attitudes of those to whom they speak. What they care about primarily, therefore, is whether what they say is effective in accomplishing this manipulation. Correspondingly, they are more or less indifferent to whether what they say is true or whether it is false. (p. 3-4) }}
 
Several political commentators have noted that Frankfurt's concept of bullshit provides insights into  political campaigns.<ref>{{Citation | last = Shafer | first = Jack | author-link = Jack Shafer | date = December 24, 2015 | title = The Limits of Fact-Checking | magazine = Politico Magazine | url = https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/the-limits-of-the-fact-checker-213461/ | access-date = 10 January 2016 }}</ref> [[Gerald Cohen]], in "Deeper into Bullshit", contrasted the kind of "bullshit" Frankfurt describes with a type he referred to as "unclarifiable unclarity" (i.e., nonsensical discourse presented as coherent and sincere but is incapable of being meaningful). Cohen points out that this sort of bullshit can be produced either accidentally or deliberately, but is especially prevalent in academia (what he calls "academic bullshit"). According to Cohen, a sincere person might be disposed to produce a large amount of nonsense unintentionally or be deceived by and innocently repeat a piece of bullshit without intent to deceive others. However, he defined "aim-bullshitters" as those who intentionally produce "unclarifiable unclarity" (i.e., Cohen-bullshit) in situations "when they have reason to want what they say to be unintelligible, for example, in order to impress, or in order to give spurious support to a claim" (p.&nbsp;133).<ref>Cohen, G. A. (2002). "Deeper into Bullshit". Originally appeared in Buss and Overton, eds., ''Contours of Agency: Themes from the Philosophy of Harry Frankfurt''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Reprinted in Hardcastle and Reich, ''Bullshit and Philosophy'' (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), {{ISBN|0-8126-9611-5}}.</ref>

Cohen gives the example of [[Alan Sokal]]'s [[Sokal Affair|"Transgressing the Boundaries"]] as a piece of ''deliberate'' bullshit (i.e., "aim-bullshitting"). Indeed, Sokal's aim in creating it was to show that the "postmodernist" editors who accepted his paper for publication could not distinguish nonsense from sense, and thereby by implication that their field was "bullshit".

Another application of Frankfurt's concept of bullshit is with regards to [[Generative artificial intelligence|generative AI]]. It has been argued that the outputs from [[ChatGPT]] and similar chatbots should be regarded as bullshit,<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Hicks | first1=Michael | last2=Humphries | first2=James | last3=Slater | first3=Joe | title=ChatGPT is bullshit | journal=Ethics and Information Technology | date= 8 June 2024 | volume=26 | issue=38 | article-number=38 | doi=10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5| doi-access=free }}</ref> particularly when it "[[Hallucination (artificial intelligence)|hallucinates]]", producing confident but false information. In 2025, researchers proposed a "bullshit index" and a "bullshit taxonomy" to quantify the degree of disregard for truth in [[Large language model|large language models]].<ref>{{cite arXiv | eprint=2507.07484 | title=Machine Bullshit: Characterizing the Emergent Disregard for Truth in Large Language Models | last1=Liang | first1=Kaiqu | last2=Hu | first2=Haimin | last3=Zhao | first3=Xuandong | last4=Song | first4=Dawn | last5=Griffiths | first5=Thomas L. | last6=Fernández Fisac | first6=Jaime | date=2025 | class=cs.CL }}</ref>

===David Graeber's theory of bullshit work in the modern economy===
Anthropologist David Graeber's book ''[[Bullshit Jobs|Bullshit Jobs: A Theory]]'' argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive.<ref>{{cite book |last=Graeber |first=David |title=Bullshit Jobs: A Theory |date=2018-05-15 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-1-5011-4331-1 |edition=1st |location=New York, NY |language=English}}</ref>

===Education and reasoning as immunization against bullshit===
[[Brandolini's law]], also known as the "bullshit asymmetry principle", holds that "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than what’s needed to produce it". This truism highlights that while the battle against misinformation more generally must be fought "face to face", the larger war against belief in misinformation won’t be won without prevention. Once people are set in their ways, beliefs are notoriously hard to change. Building immunity against false beliefs in the first place is the more effective long-term strategy.<ref name="The Psychology of Bullshit">{{cite web |last1=Pierre |first1=Joe |title=The Psychology of Bullshit |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202007/the-psychology-bullshit |website=Psychology Today |publisher=Sussex Publishing |access-date=March 31, 2022 |date=February 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=MacMillan |first1=Thomas |title=A Beginner's Guide to Calling BS |url=https://www.thecut.com/2017/06/a-beginners-guide-to-calling-b-s.html |website=New York Magazine, The Cut |publisher=VOX Media, LLC |access-date=April 9, 2022 |date=June 26, 2017}}</ref>

University of Washington biologist [[Carl Bergstrom]] and professor Jevin West began a college course on "Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World".<ref>{{cite web | last=McWilliams | first=James | title='Calling bullshit': the college class on how not to be duped by the news | website=the Guardian | date=2019-04-17 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/16/calling-bullshit-college-class-news-information | access-date=2023-02-06}}</ref> They then launched the Calling Bullshit website and published a book with the same title.

==As an object of psychological research==

Although attempts had been made in the past to examine bullshit and bullshitting from a scientific perspective,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mears |first1=Daniel P. |date=2002 |title= The Ubiquity, Functions, and Contexts of Bullshitting |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289724155
 |journal=Journal of Mundane Behavior |language=en |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=233–256 }}</ref> it did not gain attention among cognitive scientists as a legitimate area of research until 2015 when Dr.&nbsp;[[Gordon Pennycook]] (still a graduate student at that time) and his colleagues at [[University of Waterloo]] developed the "Bullshit Receptivity Scale" (BSR), a questionnaire designed to quantify receptivity to a particular kind of bullshit that they called "pseudo-profound bullshit".<ref name="The Psychology of Bullshit"/> The development of the BSR led to Pennycook and his colleagues winning the 2016 [[Ig Nobel Prize]] (for [[List of Ig Nobel Prize winners#2016|Peace]]).

Further research from Wake Forest University psychologists found evidence to support Frankfurt's notion that a person is more likely to engage in bullshitting when they feel a social pressure to provide an opinion and perceive that they will be given a social “pass” to get away with it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Petrocelli |first1=John V. |date=2018 |title= Antecedents of bullshitting |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103117305127
 |journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology |language=en |volume=76 |pages=249–258 |doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.004 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Indeed, some have theorized that social media offers a prime environment for bullshitting as it combines the social pressure to offer one's opinions on a wide variety of topics along with an anonymity that arguably provides a social “pass”. According to researchers from Queen’s University in Belfast (2008): “along with a pervasive and balkanized social media ecosystem and high internet immersion, public life provides abundant opportunities to bullshit and lie on a scale we could have scarcely credited 30 years ago”.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=MacKenzie |first1=A |title=Lies, bullshit and fake news: some epistemological concerns |journal=Postdigital Science and Education |date=February 2020 |volume=2 |pages=9–13 |doi=10.1007/s42438-018-0025-4 |s2cid=158148106 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

More recently, researchers have identified a type of [[Dunning–Kruger effect]] for bullshit receptivity called the "[[Bias blind spot|bullshit blind spot]]."<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Littrell |first1=Shane |last2=Fugelsang |first2=Jonathan A. |date=2021 |title= Bullshit blind spots: the roles of miscalibration and information processing in bullshit detection |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13546783.2023.2189163 |journal=Thinking and Reasoning |volume=30 |pages=49–78 |language=en |doi=10.1080/13546783.2023.2189163  |s2cid=257553913 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The researchers found that those who were the worst at detecting bullshit were not only grossly overconfident in their BS detection abilities but also believed that they were better at detecting it than the average person (i.e., they have a bullshit blind spot). Conversely, those who were the best at detecting bullshit were not only underconfident in their abilities, they also believed they were somewhat worse at detecting it than the average person. The researchers referred to this underconfidence bias among the high performers as "bullshit [[blindsight]]."<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Littrell | first1=Shane | last2=Fugelsang | first2=Jonathan A. | title=Bullshit blind spots: The roles of miscalibration and information processing in bullshit detection | journal=Thinking & Reasoning | date=2024 | volume=30 | pages=49–78 | doi=10.1080/13546783.2023.2189163 | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13546783.2023.2189163 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Given that much of the early scientific work on bullshit focused on those more likely to fall for it (i.e., the "bullshittees"), some researchers have turned their attention to examining those more likely to produce it (i.e., the "bullshitters"). For example, in 2021, a research team at the University of Waterloo developed the "Bullshitting Frequency Scale", which measures two types of bullshitting: "persuasive" and "evasive".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Littrell |first1=Shane |last2=Risko |first2=Evan F. |last3=Fugelsang |first3=Jonathan A. |date=2021 |title= The Bullshitting Frequency Scale: Development and psychometric properties. |url=https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12379
 |journal=British Journal of Social Psychology |language=en |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=248–270 |doi=10.1111/bjso.12379 |pmid=32304103 |s2cid=215809136 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> They defined "persuasive bullshitting" as a rhetorical strategy intended to impress, persuade, or otherwise fit in with others by bullshitting about one's knowledge, ideas, attitudes, skills, or competence. "Evasive bullshitting" refers to an evasive rhetorical strategy in which one provides "non-relevant truths" in response to inquiries when direct answers could result in reputational harm for oneself or others.

Building on these findings, the researchers also tested the familiar adage that “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter”. To do so, they explored associations between scores on the Bullshitting Frequency Scale and performance on measures of receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit, pseudoscientific bullshit, and fake news. They found that higher scores of "persuasive bullshitting" positively predicted scores for all three types of "bullshit receptivity". In other words, those who are most likely to persuasively bullshit others are in turn more likely to believe persuasive bullshit, suggesting that you can indeed bullshit a bullshitter after all.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Littrell |first1=Shane |last2=Risko |first2=Evan F. |last3=Fugelsang |first3=Jonathan A. |date=2021 |title= You can't bullshit a bullshitter (or can you?): Bullshitting frequency predicts receptivity to various types of misleading information.|url=https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12447 |journal=British Journal of Social Psychology |language=en |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=1484–1505 |doi=10.1111/bjso.12447 |pmid=33538011 |s2cid=231805408 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pierre |first1=Joe |title=Can You Bullshit a Bullshitter? |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202104/can-you-bullshit-bullshitter |website=Psychology Today |publisher=Sussex Publishing |access-date=March 31, 2022}}</ref>

==In everyday language==

Outside of the [[academia|academic]] world, among [[natural language|natural]] speakers of [[North American English]], as an [[interjection]] or [[adjective]], ''bullshit'' conveys general displeasure, an objection to, or points to unfairness within, some state of affairs. With this [[colloquial]] usage of "bullshit", which began in the 20th century, "bullshit" does not give a [[truth value|truth score]] to another's discourse. It simply labels something that the speaker does not like and feels he is unable to change.<ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', "Bullshit". This entry gives a cross-reference to the definition of "Bull", 4.3: "Trivial, insincere, or untruthful talk or writing; nonsense."</ref>

In the [[Boston accent|colloquial English]] of the [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]] area, "bullshit" can be used as an adjective to communicate that one is angry or upset, for example, "I was wicked bullshit after someone parked in my spot".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.universalhub.com/glossary/bullshit.html |title=Bullshit |website=Universal Hub |date=8 November 2003 }}</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Buzzword bingo]], also known as bullshit bingo
* [[Chicken shit]]
* [[Confabulation]]
* [[Fake news]]
* [[Gish gallop]]
* [[Holy cow (expression)|Holy cow]]
* [[Humbug]]
* [[Not even wrong]]
* [[Sacred cow (idiom)|Sacred cow]]
* [[Shibai]]
* [[Tall tale]]
* [[wikt:vranyo|Vranyo]]
* [[Waffle (speech)]]
{{div col end}}

==References==

===Notes===
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
* Eliot, T. S. (1997).  ''Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917''. Harcourt. {{ISBN|0-15-100274-6}}.
* {{cite book |author=Frankfurt, Harry G. |title=On Bullshit |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0-691-12294-6 |author-link=Harry Frankfurt |url=https://archive.org/details/onbullshit00fran}}&nbsp;– Harry Frankfurt's detailed analysis of the concept of bullshit.
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Hardcastle |editor1-first=Gary L. |editor2-last=Reisch |editor2-first=George A. |title=Bullshit and Philosophy |year=2006 |publisher=Open Court (Carus Publishing) |location=Chicago |isbn=0-8126-9611-5}}
* Holt, Jim, ''[http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050822crat_atlarge Say Anything]'', one of his ''Critic At Large'' essays from ''[[The New Yorker]]'', (August 22, 2005).
* {{cite book |author=Penny, Laura |title=Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth About Bullshit |year=2005 |publisher=Random House |isbn=1-4000-8103-3 |author-link=Laura Penny |url=https://archive.org/details/yourcallisimport00penn}}&nbsp; – Halifax academic Laura Penny's study of the phenomenon of bullshit and its impact on modern society.
* Weingartner, C. "Public doublespeak: every little movement has a meaning all of its own". ''College English'', Vol.&nbsp;37, No.&nbsp;1 (Sep., 1975), pp.&nbsp;54–61.

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book | last1=Bergstrom | first1=Carl T. | last2=West | first2=Jevin D. | title=Calling bullshit : the art of skepticism in a data-driven world | publication-place=New York | date=2020 | isbn=978-0-525-50918-9 | oclc=1127668193}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{Wikiquote-inline}}
* {{Wiktionary inline}}

{{Disinformation}}

[[Category:English profanity]]
[[Category:Feces]]
[[Category:Interjections]]
[[Category:Deception]]
[[Category:English words]]
[[Category:Concepts in the philosophy of language]]