Bunko

If you have watched a police drama on television that mentions bunko, they’re referring to the police department that deals with squad which is sometimes also referred to as the fraud squad or the bunko squad.

A bunko man is an individual who practises the bunko swindle (also known as the bunko crime or bunko game) and who isn’t always male. Lots of women have been arrested for being bunko men.

Here’s how the bunko swindle operates: The con man (who is male or female) persuades the victim to trust them, and then swindles the victim out of valuables in his or her possession. The game is always the same even though the game keeps being reinvented with new twists added — or removed — to make the story even more believable to the victim.

So bunko is about hoaxes and misleading people and fraudulent activities.

All of that is interesting but where in the world did the word come from in the first place? To get to that answer, some history behind the word will prove helpful.

First off, bunko can be a shortened form of the word bunkum (and that’s where a lot of word trouble begins). Bunkum was them, and is now, complete and utter nonsense. In other words, talk intended to please the person or persons to whom the talker speaks.

In the early 1900s, fraud committed via this method resulted in a statute that referred to the practice of committing this kind of fraud as bunko steering. In FLEMING v STATE (No. 21,582) at the Supreme Court of Indiana on 24 May 1910, a very clear definition of what constituted bunko steering was included.

However allures, entices or persuades another to any place upon any pretense, and then and there, by fraud or duress, induces or compels such person to lose, advance or loan money, to part with anything of value, or to execute his check, note or other obligation either for money or for anything of value; of whoever, in like manner allures, entices, or persuades another to any place and then and there induces or compels him to part with anything of value by means of any trick, device or artifice, or upon any game or wager, is guilty of bunko-steering, and, on conviction, shall be imprisoned in the state prison not less than two years or more than fourteen years; and all persons present at such place at such time, engaged therein, shall be prosecuted, tried and punished for such offense as principals.

In the 1889 edition of “A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant: Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tiners’ Jargon and Other Irregular Phraseology” compiled by Albert Barrère (1846 – 11 February 1921) and ‎Charles Godfrey Leland (15 August 1824 – 20 March 1903), readers are directed to read the entry for Buncombe or bunkum for an understanding of what bunko or bunk is which only adds to the historical confusion of the word. The definition is:

To talk big, affecting enthusiasm, but always with an underhanded purpose. Mr. Horton has made the discovery that “it arose from a speech made by a North Carolina senator named Buncombe.”

The “Treasures of Science, History and Literature, Instructive, Amusing, Practical for the Study and the Fireside” by American journalist and editor Moses Folsom (4 August 1847 – 11 September 1933) and published in 1878 had an entire section devoted to Swindlers titled, “Curiosities of Swindling: Specimen Swindles” with a complete section devoted to BUNKO (as the heading stated). It informed readers of the following in part:

If the traveler escapes the monte men on the railroad trains, he may next be subjected to the wiles of the bunko men in the city. The bunko men travel in pairs, usually, and the strangers coming from depot, or wandering on the streets, are “spotted” by these rascals.

There was no mention of any politician with this definition which was a nuanced indication that perhaps bunko and bunk were not words with the same origins.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1: Moses Folsom at one point held the position of secretary of the Florida State Marketing Bureau, and prior to tht he spent two years as the secretary of the Palatka Board of Trade and a year in the office of the state commissioner of agriculture of Tallahassee. Earlier, in 1878, he was appointed Superintendent of the Iowa State Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Council Bluff during which time he established The Deaf-Mute Hawkeye newspaper which was printed by students in the district.

As Idiomation continued digging, it was learned the senator mentioned by Mr. Horton was Revolutionary Officer and Senator Felix Walker (19 July 1753 – 1828) who was a Congressman whose district in North Carolina included Buncombe County (where Asheville is found). In 1820, he made a lengthy speech made on 25 February during the 16th Congress that led to the passage of the Missouri Compromise. It was so lengthy that several of his colleagues begged him to cease and desist, but he persisted. He even claimed at one point that the people he represented expected as much from him, and that he was “bound to make a speech for Buncombe.”

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2: Up until the American Civil War, there was another interesting historical note having to do with Buncombe County that was used by a number of people in and around North Carolina. If something was the biggest or best, it was said it was “the best thing this side of meaning it was biggest or the best until you got to Buncombe County where it would learned that it wasn’t the biggest or the best when compared to what was to be found in Buncombe County.

So people who knew of this expression let others know that Buncombe was a place that was strange in mythical proportions as well as full of hot air ideas. At least that’s what newspaper back in 1843 reported.

A few years later, the word bunkum showed up in the 1828 issue of the Niles Weekly Register stating that a political oratory to please or full a constituency was “cantly called talking to Bunkum.” Shortly afterwards, talking to bunkum or talking for bunkum meant any insincere, empty, or deceptive talk in general.

By 11 November 1843, even the Bucks Herald of Aylesbruy was talking about bunkum when referring to the Libel Act that was before parliament at the time, reporting that “the act was, and ever will be, Bunkum.”

It took until 1893 for the word bunkum to be shortened to bunk, and that was thanks to American humorist, journalist and writer from Chicago Finley Peter (F.P.) Dunne (10 July 1867 – 24 April 1936) who had his Irish character Mr. Dooley (a fictional character who had immigrated to the United States) say the following:

That is th’ real Irish village, for bechune you an’ me, Jawnny, I think th’other one from Donegal is a sort of bunk, I do, an’ I niver liked Donegal anny how.

But bunk and bunko are pretty much the same, right? It would appear the answer to that question is no, and the confusion has to do with the fact that as the words bunkum and bunk were making their way into the lexicon, so was the game bunko which was a gambling game that used eight dice cloth and was imported from England in 1855 to the United States — specifically to San Francisco. Along the way, a few of the original rules were altered by gamblers to benefit gamblers, and relied on swift, empty talk.

What began as an enchanting parlor game that promoted social interactions among family and friends became a way to swindle property owners out of their property and valuables.

By the time the 1920s rolled around, large cities had bunko games going on in nearly every gambling parlor and speakeasy, and the police who broke up those games were known as bunko squads.

So while Buncombe, bunkum, bunk, and bunko may appear at first blush to share the same roots, bunkum and bunk are thanks to Senator Felix Walker in the early 1800s, bunko is thanks to English gamblers arriving in America in the mid-1800s, and all three words — bunkum, bunk, and bunko — have to do with less than savory practices that employ lots of fast and easy talk.

Hairy Canary

If you hear of someone having a hairy canary, you can bet that they are having a temper tantrum, an emotional outburst, or find themselves in outright panic mode. It’s an expression with an interesting history that winds its way through a number of different paths.

In North Carolina, in the Lower Hawksbill on the Northern Blue Ridge Mountains that faces the northwest (its highest elevation is 4,020 feet), there’s a climb that’s been known as the Hairy Canary since the mid-1990s. It’s nestled among other creatively named rappelling climbs such as Star Trekin’, Lost IN Space, Swing Your Phaser, and Phaser On Stun.

In 1981, Chick Corea recorded an album that was marketed under the title, “Live At Montreux” and along with Chick Corea were jazz musicians Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), Gary Peacock (bass) and Roy Haynes (drums). It was a live recording captured on July 15, 1981 while they were performing at the Casino de Montreux at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The second cut on the album is entitled, “Hairy Canary.”

And in 1973, Mattel Inc., was granted a copyright for Hair Canary in the “Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series” in Volume 27, Part 1, Number 2, Section 1. It took some deep digging to find out that Mattel’s Hairy Canary was a hand-powered super stunt plane that was billed as “easy to learn” and promised to give “hours of fun.” A bit more digging after that revealed that in Volume 29 of “Design News” and Volume 16 of “Power Transmission Design” — both of which were published in 1974 — Mattel’s Hairy Canary was the subject of an article entitled, “How Would You Keep The Hairy Canary Airborne?”

The Billboard edition of June 1, 1968 wrote about Hi Lit’s new progressive rock radio station WDAS-FM in Philadelphia, PA. It was reported that eighty percent of the programming at the radio station was album cuts, and that the material ranged from Steppenwolf to the Rotary Connection through to the Chamber Brothers. All pop music was banned. Then this little extra was included in the article:

The station uses the tag line of “Hy Syski Underground.” Syski is the nickname Lit has used for years. The station has also just issued a two-page newspaper called the “Hairy Canary” featuring gossip items about progressive rock artists, and a list of the major LPs’ it will be bi-monthly in schedule.

And back in 1946, California cultivated a fine ornamental clover for gardens by the name of Hairy Canary clover. It was a deterrent to soil erosion and considered a forage crop.

But none of that explains the idiom hairy canary.

On December 19, 2013 journalist Laurie Higgins wrote at article that was posted to the Illinois Family Institute website. It was about the suspension of Phil Robertson from the popular A&E Show “Duck Dynasty” for having made some politically incorrect statements. The article was entitled, “Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson: The Hairy Canary In The Rainbow Coal Mine.”

By removing the colorful jargon, the phrase became one of a canary in the coal mine. The definition for that idiom was of someone or something whose sensitivity to adverse conditions made the person or the thing a useful early indicator of adverse conditions. Whatever happened to the person or the thing, was an early warning of approaching greater danger or trouble. Beginning in 1911, (up until 1986), canaries were used in coal mines as early warning systems for toxic gases and fumes such as coal dust, methane gas or CH4.

When the canary was off-color, the workers in the coal mine knew that trouble was brewing and alerted them to the fact that they needed to get out of the mineshaft for safety’s sake. That being said, canaries were delicate birds and therefore not as reliable as thought, which resulted in more than a few false alarms with regards to toxic conditions for miners.

It would be reasonable to believe that a canary dying while down in the coal mines might cause a certain amount of panic in miners at the time, and their wives would also be aflutter with concerns every day their husbands were working down in the coal mines. The rhyming undoubtedly is an offshoot of cockney rhyming slang and since the expression canary in the coal mine appears to have started in the UK, it makes sense that the idiom would eventually be shortened to hairy canary. The earliest reference to hairy canary, as shown earlier in this entry, was in 1968 with the 2-page newspaper courtesy of WDAS-FM in Philadelphia, and indicates that the idiom was already part of the lingo used by listeners of progressive rock stations.

It is therefore reasonable to peg the idiom hairy canary to 1960 and possibly earlier. Perhaps readers and visitors who are aware of the use of hairy canary in conversation, news articles, or books will be share links to such use.

Tar Heel

If you ever find yourself in a tar heel fight, you best be ready for a fight you won’t get out of anytime soon. There’s a certain stick-to-it attitude that’s part of a tar heel fight that you don’t get from other kinds of fights. To understand how a tar heel fight differs from other fights, you first have to understand what tar heel means.

On May 7, 2008 the Montreal Gazette published a news article that had to do with the Democratic primary in North Carolina. After weeks of controversy over his former pastor, Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the primary held in that state, which helped him tremendously by giving some momentum to his campaign. The story was entitled, “Obama Bests Clinton In Tar Heel State.”

When you hear tar heel, it almost always has something to do with North Carolina. There’s no two ways about it. Wherever you hear talk of North Carolina, talk of tar heels is never far behind. In fact, the Spokane Daily Chronicle of March 12, 1957 carried an Associated Press story that talked about the North Carolina Tar Heels, a basketball team that seemed to specialize in winning close games. The title of the article was, “Winning Close Ones A Tar Heel Specialty.”

It was the Lewiston Daily Sun of October 12, 1928 published an article on Governor Smith’s train campaign along a route that took him through Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina. The article entitled, “Smith In Virginia and North Carolina: First Democratic Nominee To Make Personal Appeal For Southern Vote In Years” also reported on other nominees making similar train campaigns, and included this passage in the report:

Sen. Carter Glass, of Virginia, joined the train early in the morning at Washington. At Norlina and Henderson, the Governor received his first ovations in North Carolina, going to the rear platform to exchange greetings with well-wishers. At Norlina his train was boarded by Democratic leaders from the tar heel State who accompanied him to Raleigh.

Steuben Farmers’ Advocate newspaper reported on Chairman Daniel’s speech on July 15, 1896 — a speech that paid tribute to Senator Hill and made an eloquent plea for majority rule. He claimed that the Democratic party was ‘co-evil with the birth of sovereignty of the people‘ and said it could never die until the Declaration of American Independence was forgotten and sovereignty was crushed out. As he gave his speech, there were loud rounds of applause throughout, and more than a few when he was quoted as having said:

It sends forth pioneers from Plymouth Rock and waves over the golden wheat fields of Dakota. It has its strongholds in Alabama and Mississippi and its outposts in Minnesota, Florida and Oregon. It sticks like a tar heel down in the old north State and it writes sixteen to one on the saddle bags of the Arkansaw traveler.

In the diary of William B. A. Lawrence, the last narrative entry of February 6, 1863 also referred to tar heels, but as it pertained to soldiers from North Carolina. In this entry, the author wrote:

I know now what is meant by the Piney Woods of North Carolina and the idea occurs to me that it is no wonder we are called Tar Heels.

The manner in which William Lawrence used tar heels reflected respect, praise, and commendation for the soldiers from North Carolina. But he wasn’t the only one who felt this way about North Carolina’s soldiers. In fact, at the Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee in January 1863, North Carolina’s soldiers made an impression on the commanding General John S. Preston who, in addressing the troops, said:

This is your first battle of any consequence, I believe. Indeed, you Tar Heels have done well.

So how is it that residents of North Carolina came to be known as tar heels? North Carolina was the leader producer of naval stores (a category of building and maintenance supplies for sailing ships that included cordage, mask, turpentine, rosin, pitch and tar) from 1720 through to 1870. It makes sense then that the tar, pitch and turpentine for which they were known in particular would identify them.

In the end, tar heels can be tagged as being used in writing in early 1863 and because it was expected that soldiers would understand what General Preston meant when he used the expression when addressing his troops, the expression can be traced back another generation to sometime in the late 1830s or early 1840s.