I want to debunk two myths this week. Both are related in a way. One is about Mark Twain. The other is concerning the sport of golf. People have told me that Mark Twain said, “Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
To debunk something is to take the bunk out of it. One can disprove a myth, but if it is debunked, the implication is that the myth was a grossly exaggerated or foolish claim.
The word bunk is a shortened form of bunkum, which was derived from the name of Buncombe County, North Carolina.
Congressman Felix Walker, representative to the United States Legislature from the district in which this county was located, gave a very long and boring speech in 1820 to Congress. His words had nothing to do with the matter under discussion, but he needed to say something on the record to justify his elected position to the voters of Buncombe County. He admitted to his colleagues, ‘I shall not be speaking to the House, but to Buncombe.’ There was nothing of importance in his words, just empty political nonsense. The media reported his rhetoric as a speech of Buncombe. The word buncombe, and its alternate spelling bunkum, quickly caught on as a name for political nonsense speeches. It was not too long before bunkum expanded to include any kind of meaningless, pointless, or insincere talk or action. Eventually, bunkum was shortened to the more emphatic bunk.
Thomas Edison was widely quoted as saying ‘Religion is all bunk.’ This caused such an uproar in 1910 that he was forced to clarify that his quarrel wasn’t with the existence of God but with churches.
Henry Ford, a pacifist crusader, argued against U.S. involvement in World War I in 1916, and told an interviewer, ‘History is more or less bunk.’ Ford was responding to the suggestion that a strongly armed US Navy could make a difference in the war and protect America, just like the British Navy protected England from an invasion by Napoleon. "What do I care about Napoleon?" Ford said. "What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today."
In the early 1900s to remove the embellished or ridiculous and get to the truth of a matter was to debunk it.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) was given credit for the saying, “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” However, that has been debunked.
The quote about golf did not appear in any of his works. The earliest attribution to Twain on the quote was in August 1948. The Saturday Evening Post published an article about the beginnings of golf in Scotland. The first paragraph of the article assigned the joke to the famous humorist from Hannibal, Missouri. Then in December 1948 the mass-circulation periodical “The Reader’s Digest” printed the phrase and referenced it to Mark Twain, as per The Saturday Evening Post Article. Thus, it became popular to quote Mark Twain as saying, “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” But that has never been verified as a quote from Twain.
The earliest appearance of the saying occurred in The Morning Leader newspaper of London, England in 1897. “Mr. Littler, Q.C., is a golf enthusiast. What is more, he believes that golf can be played at as late a period of a man’s life as football or cricket. He does not, in other words, assume that the game is a game of old men. He believes, in fact, that golf is a game which requires, in the word of a well-known golfer, “activity, suppleness, and strength.” He does not assume that a game of golf is a “good walk spoiled.””
I think those reasons sufficiently debunk the myth that the saying came from Mark Twain. But I also desire to debunk the saying itself, that ‘Golf is a good walk spoiled’. There are many days on which I think that I played golf so badly that the only reason I was there was for the exercise of a walk in a beautiful park-like setting. And the walk was well worth the effort, even if the golfing was not so good. A wonderful time can be experienced walking through a golf course and playing golf. Not only do you get the exercise of walking but also the physical and mental stimulation of the sport in a exquisite venue. I submit that golf is always a good walk, no matter what the score. As has been quoted, “A bad day of golf is better than a good day at work.” Debunk that, if you can.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com. Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
