Alaskan Range: Malarkey
'“Malarkey,” which means “nonsense, flattery,” according to the Dictionary of American Slang, has oodles of unsubstantiated origins,'' says columnist Greg Hill.
“Malarkey!” was one of my father’s favorite epithets for things he deemed phony or exaggerated. I heard it all the time growing up, but not so much anymore.
Dad died long ago, but I know he’d use something stronger to describe what a bunch of obscure publishers like BiblioBazaar, Nabu Press and Arc Manor are doing through Amazon and other on-line book vendors — issuing “new” books that are facsimile reproductions of earlier works that often can be obtained for free.
For example, William James, the psychologist-pioneer brother of Henry, wrote his “Talk to Teachers on Psychology” in 1899, but the publication date on Amazon.com’s facsimile edition of James’ work published by BiblioBazaar is March 23, 2007.
BiblioBazaar claims to have published 272,930 different books in 2009. A Publishers Weekly article on the company asked, “Could one little company really produce so much volume?”
Well, sort of. Mostly they publish a single copy of an old title by turning “what is essentially a picture of a book page into what a reader expects a book will look like.”
Nonprofit outfits like Project Guttenberg offer thousands of books for free downloading for printing or loading onto ebook readers. Guttenberg volunteers scan print books that are not covered by copyright protection into digital formats. These scans are proofed by a series of trained volunteers several times to eliminate errors in the scanning. Even the best scanning programs misread a small percentage of letters and close reading is necessary to catch them, for even three or four incorrect letters on each page can dramatically alter meanings.
BiblioBazaar and its ilk download one of these copies, bind it and sell it, making a tidy profit. Is that wrong, or is it finding a niche market? Either way, “So much for technology ending print,” as Publishers Weekly noted. Within a few years, I foresee print-on-demand machines in libraries and stores that download, print and bind good, readable copies of books. That might have prevented dad from “busting a gut,” another favorite idioms.
I’ve recently learned the source of many of the old man’s preferred expressions, such as “For crying out loud” and “Oh, applesauce,” were coined or popularized in the early 1900s by TAD, a sports cartoonist. Before photographic reproduction became practical, newspapers relied on cartoonists like Thomas Aloysius Dorgan to make quick, eye-catching sketches of sporting events, fires and other big stories, and TAD was one of the best.
In 1890, at age 13, TAD lost three fingers on his right hand in a factory accident and started drawing for physical therapy. By 14 he was on the staff of the San Francisco Bulletin, and by 1905 he was a top cartoonist working for the big New York papers.
TAD was considered “the greatest authority on boxing” by no less than Jack Dempsey, and his “Indoor Sports” strip was wildly popular, so much so that his clever wordplay and use of newfangled slang quickly went viral, to use a modern expression. Among many others, he introduced the terms “hard-boiled,” “kibitzer,” “drugstore cowboy,” “cat’s pajamas” and “yes, we have no bananas,” which was adapted into the well-known tune.
TAD introduced neither “hot dog” (supposedly coined when he couldn’t recall how to spell “dachshund”) and “malarkey,” though many Internet sources credit him. For hot dog’s roots, search no further than Snopes.com, a prime source for rumor refutation. There you’ll see that “sausage-on-a-bun” was replaced by “hot dog.”
“Malarkey,” which means “nonsense, flattery,” according to the Dictionary of American Slang, has oodles of unsubstantiated origins. Etymology Online states it’s of unknown American English origin from about 1924. Others claim it comes from an Irish name, Irish appellation for “ruffian,” or Irish root word for “deceiver.” As www.TakeOurWord.com put it, “If you ever find the etymology of malarkey anywhere, it will likely be a bunch of malarkey.”
Public libraries often charge for photocopying, using special equipment, and the like, but Alaska law requires they must provide free access to essential library services: loaning books, Interlibrary Loan, programs for children, and reference information. That’s how it is across the land; suggesting otherwise is a bunch of malarkey.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Providing services is a library’s legal duty and that’s no malarkey
