Malarkey

Malarkey (pronounced muh-lahr-kee)

(1) Speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead, or impress; bunkum; a lie.

(2) Stuff (according to Joe Biden).

1920s: An Americanism of uncertain origin which, despite the urban myth, seems not linked directly to any Irish regionalism or slang although it is a surname of Irish origin.  There may be some relationship with the Greek μαλακός (malakós) (soft; compliant, meek; gentle, mellow, mild, mild-mannered) or μαλακία (malakía) (literally “masturbation”) which figuratively was used to mean “idiocy, stupidity; bullshit, nonsense” in much the same way “wanker” is used in English.  The word gained its early currency from its use by Irish-American cartoonist Thomas Aloysius “Tad” Dorgan (1877–1929), his first use of the word appearing in March 1922.  The synonyms include balderdash, drivel, humbug, foolishness, hogwash, nonsense, & ribbish.  Malarkey is a noun and the (more rare still) noun plural is malarkeys.  Over the years, the spellings malarkey, malachy, malarky, mallarky & mullarkey have all appeared and, as an informal noun, probably none can be said to be right or wrong but malarkey is certainly the most common.

The Irish surname Malarkey was from the Gaelic ó Maoilearca, a patronymic meaning “a descendant of Maoilearca, a follower of St. Earc” and the first known records are in the parish records of Tír Chonaill (Tirconnell; in present day County Donegal, Ulster) where they held a family seat as a branch of the O'Connell's.  The spelling variations (something not then uncommon) were legion and included, inter-alia, Mullarkey, Mullarky, Mallarky, Malarchy, Malarkey, Mularkey and many more.  By the time the name had spread to North America, the spelling had settled on Malarkey and it’s speculated it may have entered the lexicon of slang in the 1920s as an ethnic slur, based on the stereotype of the Irish as slow-witted and given to nonsensical statements.  Another word in US slang during the same era was ackamarackus which, although not documented until the 1930s, it may have been in oral use earlier.  Unlike malarkey, ackamarackus appears to be wholly an arbitrary formation (albeit one with a hint of pseudo-Latin) with not ethnic link and instead simply an attempt to convey the sense of the nonsensical.  Some possible authors have been suggested but the evidence is scant.

Carl Giles noting comrade Khrushchev’s arrival in Washington DC, Daily Express, September 1959.

In September 1959, comrade Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964) paid a state visit to the US while the Americans, who had been so shocked by the launch of Sputnik (October 1957), were in the early stages of what came to be called the “space race”, something which really began with the Pentagon moving to match the so-called “missile gap” (which was later proved to be illusory).  The Beaverbrook press’s cartoonist Cark Giles (1916-1995) was well acquainted with British stereotypes of Americans and his use of “malarkey” presumably references the idea of US police forces being dominated by the Irish.

When Joe Biden chose "No Malarkey!" as a campaign slogan for the 2020 presidential campaign, it wasn’t without risk because it was then, as it remains, a fuddy-duddy word and one associated (by the few who knew of it) with old men (the “pale, male & stale” said now to be marketing poison).  Although US presidential politics has of late been dominated by geriatrics (Biden now 80, Donald Trump 76 and crooked Hillary Clinton 75 (though she looks older)), candidates more youthful have tended to be preferred and when Ronald Reagan (b 1911; US president 1981-1989), then a spritely 69, ran in 1980, his advisors didn’t much care about comments suggesting he was “too ignorant” but devoted much effort to managing perceptions he was “too old”.

Campaign bus of Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021), Iowa, 2020.

However, #NoMalarkey probably was a good choice because it was authentically a reflection of the way Biden talks and was at least coherent, unlike much of what he says and it wasn’t as if anyone would have been fooled (as crooked Hillary has attempted) into thinking he was younger.  So, it had the virtue of authenticity which in the age of Donald Trump, crooked Hillary, fake news and twitterbots, must have had some appeal to a cynical electorate and it was distinctive, probably not having much appeared in many campaigns in living memory.  It’s certainly been a part of Biden’s language for years; in the 2012 vice presidential debate with then house speaker Paul Ryan (b 1970; speaker of the US House of Representatives 2015-2019), Biden dismissed one attack as “a bunch of malarkey”.  That was fine but a little later he called another of Ryan statements “a bunch of stuff” which prompted the debate’s moderator to ask what that meant.  Helpfully, Ryan (a good Irish name) interjected to say “It’s Irish” and while in other circumstances Biden (then a youthful 70), would probably just have rejoined “it’s bullshit” , he instead returned to his theme and said “we Irish call it malarkey.”

In political use, it’s actually a handy way of calling someone a liar without using the word and probably better than something like “mendacious” which is too clever (the voters apparently don’t like politicians using words with an obscure meaning) or the crooked Hillaryesque “misspeak” which is a weasel-word.  He clearly found it helpful because the Washington Post’s 2015 analysis of Sunlight Foundation data found that in the twentieth & twenty-first centuries, Biden had said “malarkey” more than anyone on the floor of either house of Congress.  His championing of malarkey seemed also to give the word a nudge back into the mainstream beyond the beltway because, in 2013, the HuffPost reported Lindsay Lohan (another good Irish name) as saying part of a story about her run in the New York Times Magazine was “malarkey”.