the.com/hokum
Nonsense dressed up in just enough swagger to sound like wisdom.
means Pretentious nonsense or contrived rubbish, especially the kind served up for cheap emotional or dramatic effect.
from Theater and showbiz slang from early 1900s America, likely a blend of 'hocus-pocus' and 'bunkum' (the latter itself derived from Buncombe County, North Carolina, after a congressman's long-winded, meaningless speech delivered 'for Buncombe'). Stagehands and actors used 'hokum' for the cheap tricks and stock gags guaranteed to get a reaction from an audience — the theatrical equivalent of empty political bluster.
- origin
- blend of hocus-pocus and bunkum, 1910s theater slang
- original use
- cheap tricks writers used to guarantee audience laughs
- today
- any claim too confident to have checked its own facts