Debunk (pronounced dih-buhngk)
(1) To expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion,
sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated.
(2) To disparage, ridicule, lampoon.
1920–1925: An invention of US English, the construct
being de- + bunk. The de-
prefix was from the Latin dē-, from
the preposition dē (of, from (the Old
English æf- was a similar prefix)). It imparted the sense of (1) reversal,
undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) from, off. Like dis-, the de- prefix
was used to form a complex verb with the sense of undoing the action of a
simple one and the handy device has been most productive, English gaining such
useful words as demob, degauss and, of course, the dreaded deconstruct & the
lamentable decaffeinate. It’s obviously
valuable but the more fastidious guardians of English were of course moved to
caution it shouldn’t be used because one was too indolent to find the existing
antonym although it was conceded that some coinings were necessary to convey
some special sense such as “decontaminate”, needed in those situations when
something like “cleanse” is inadequate. Bunk in
this context was etymologically un-related to other forms of “bunk” and was a and
was a clipping of bunkum (pronounced
buhng-kuhm) which meant (1) insincere speechmaking by a politician intended
merely to please local constituents and (2) insincere talk; claptrap; humbug. Debunk is (a transitive) verb
and debunker is a noun.
Although
the exact date in unclear, during sittings of the sixteenth United States Congress
(1819-1821), a long, torturous debate ensued on the difficult matter of the Missouri Compromise, something which would later return to haunt the nation. Well into discussions, Felix Walker (1753–1828;
representative (Democratic-Republican (sic)) for North Carolina 1817-1823),
rose and began what was apparently, even by the standards of the House of
Representatives, a long, dull and irrelevant speech which, after quite some
time, induced such boredom that many members walked from the chamber and other
attempted to end his delivery by moving that the question be put. Noting the reaction, Representative Walker felt
compelled to explain, telling his colleagues “I’m talking for Buncombe”, referring to his constituents in
Buncombe County. Delivered phonetically,
the phrase entered the political lexicon as “talking to (or for) Bunkum” and this was soon clipped to “bunk”
meaning “speech of empty thoughts expressed with inflated or pretentious language”. Later, the sense of bunk was extended to mean
“anything wrong or worthless”.
Bunk in
the sense of “wrong, worthless” probably gained its popularity from the phrase “history is bunk”, attributed to Henry
Ford (1863–1947), famous for being founder of the Ford Motor Company and infamous
for some of his more odious opinions. His
words first appeared in print in an interview, publishing in 1916, the context
being his opposition to US involvement in the war in Europe:
"History is more or less bunk. It is 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. That’s the trouble with the world. We’re living in books and history and
tradition. We want to get away from that
and take care of today. We’ve done too
much looking back. What we want to do
and do it quick is to make just history right now."
Quite what Mr Ford meant has been much discussed over the
years and the man himself did later discuss it, although there are inconsistencies
in his explanations. Historians have
concluded he was expressing scepticism at the value of history as it is taught
in schools and other educational institutions; his feeling being there was too
much emphasis on kings & emperors, wars & empires, politics &
philosophy and entirely too little on the lives of ordinary people who, in a
sense, actually “made the history”. Ironically, given his critique of what’s
known as the “great man” school of history, he is regarded as one of the great
men whenever histories are written of the early automobile and the development
of assembly-line mass-production.
The verb “debunk” actually emerged from a work of what would now be called popular revisionist history. In 1923, novelist William Woodward (1874-1950) published the best-selling Bunk, the blurb suggesting his purpose being to “take the bunk out of things” and debunk was soon adopted by academic historians who in the 1920s made something of an industry in writing books and papers debunking the myths and puff-pieces the propaganda of World War I (1914-1918) produced in abundance. An obviously useful word, it was soon in vogue throughout North America and quickly made its way across the Atlantic and to the rest of the English-speaking world. Pedants in England, rarely happy with anything new, of course objected to a short punchy word intruding where they might use a paragraph but debunk made itself at home and never left.
A more recent coining was "prebunk", used as both noun and verb. The act of prebunking involves issuing warnings about disinformation or misinformation before dissemination and once done, the fake news is said to have been prebunked (in political warfare it's a pre-emptive strike and thus differs from something like an injunction which is preventive). Very much a word of the era of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013), "prebunk" seems not to have been used until 2017, sometime after a spokesperson for the Trump administration formalized the concept of "alternative facts". "Alternative facts" was not something new and had been part of the language of government probably as long as there have been governments but the Trump White House was the first blatantly to admit use. Mothers with young children are familiar with "alternative facts" such as "Santa Claus" or "the tooth fairy" and the idea worked so well under Trump it became a core part of the Biden administration's media management although, if coming from Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025) himself, it was hard to tell where "alternative facts" end and senility began.
Servergate, the scandal about crooked Hillary Clinton's home-brew mail server was as much about the cover-up which was her attempt to debunk the facts as it was about her initial wrongdoings. For cartoonists, crooked Hillary was the gift which kept giving.
Conspiracy theories have probably been around as long as human
societies have existed but as means of communications have expanded, their
spread has both extended and accelerated, social media just the latest and most
effective vector of transmission. Debunking
conspiracy theories is also a thing although in this, there’s doubtlessly an
element of preaching to the converted, the already convinced dismissing the
debunkers as part of the conspiracy. However,
debunking can in itself be something of a conspiracy such as the wholly
unconvincing stories concocted to try to explain away the curious business surrounding
crooked Hillary Clinton’s home-brew mail server. Trying to dismiss concerns about that as the
stuff of conspiracy theorists was less a debunking than a cover-up.
A more conventional debunking was published by Nicki Swift which detailed the truly bizarre conspiracy theories about Lindsay Lohan’s “twin
sister”. It began after the release of
the 1998 film The Parent Trap in which twins Hallie Parker and Annie James meet
at summer camp after being separated at birth and, having been re-united, the
pair embark upon a series of adventures in an attempt to bring back together
their divorced parents. Lindsay Lohan played
both parts including many scenes in which the twins appeared together and while
there had been advances in technology since Hayley Mills (b 1946) undertook the
role in the 1961 original, the film was thought an impressive achievement in
editing and stage direction, the body-double being Erin Mackey (b 1986, about a
fortnight before Lindsay Lohan).
The conspiracy theory was that Lindsay Lohan didn’t play both parts and that she actually had a co-star: her twin sister Kelsey Lohan, variations of the explanation for the now absent spouse including that she was murdered immediately prior to the film’s debut while others say she was killed in 2001 after a mysterious (and well-concealed) disappearance. BuzzFeed included an entry about this in one of their pieces about celebrity conspiracies, documenting the story of how after Kelsey died in a car accident (which, given her “sister’s” driving habits when young, was at least plausible) the Disney corporation “covered their tracks” by saying Lindsay portrayed the twins, her family corroborating this due to their obsession with celebrity. Whether there was an intention to suggest Disney was in some was involved in the “death” wasn’t made clear but the wording certainly hints at the implication.
The idea of the Walt Disney Company as somehow evil has been around for decades and was the undercurrent in the helpful video posted on Mandii Vee’s YouTube channel, her explanation for the scandal being that Kelsey "mysteriously died" prior to the film's release and that put Disney in a predicament because they didn't want to release a movie starring a now dead girl. Such things have been done before and sometimes with notable commercial success but according to Mandii Vee, Disney thought it would bring “bad juju” (a noun or adjective meaning “something cursed or haunted by a dark aura”). Disney’s solution was said to be a high-finance version of comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953) “un-personing” or the techniques of erasure George Orwell (1903-1950) detailed in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), paying Lindsay Lohan's parents millions in hush money to keep the secret, never speaking of the unfortunate Kelsey again and denying she ever existed. At that point, Disney would have pulped and re-printed all the film’s promotional collateral, re-shot the credits and publicized the story that Lindsay Lohan played both roles. Finding the idea one actor could do both at the same time improbable, Mandii Vee delved a bit into physics and pondered whether such things were technically even possible.
The Edsel
1958 Edsel Citation convertible.
It has been suggested some debunking needs to be applied to some possibly mythical aspects of the story of the doomed Edsel. The name “Edsel” has become a byword for commercial failure, based on the sad story of the Edsel car, a brand introduced in 1958 by the Ford Motor Company and so poorly received that the whole Edsel division was shuttered within three years. The product was said to have failed because:
(1) It was just another variation of the existing large cars
sold by the corporation under the Ford and Mercury brands while the increasing
public appetite was for smaller, imported models (and within a few years Ford’s own and smaller Falcon,
Fairlane & Mustang).
(2) It was introduced into a market where automobile sales were in decline because of the brief but sharp recession of 1958, the mid-price sector where sat the Edsel especially affected.
(3) It had for more than two years been over-hyped as
something genuinely innovative whereas it was little different from a 1958 Ford or Mercury.
(4) The build quality was patchy, as was the factory’s
support for dealers.
(5) The styling was judged unattractive, especially the large, gaping grill, the vertical orientation of which was out of step with the trend towards the horizontal. Some also found in the grill some resemblance to female genitalia which was thought variously disturbing or amusing but certainly not attractive. The anthropomorphic implications of the grill were toned-down when the range was restyled for the 1959 range and vanished completely for the short-lived 1960 season but by then the damage was done.
Too much, too soon and too little, too late: 1958 Edsel Corsair (left), 1959 Edsel Corsair (centre) and 1960 Edsel Ranger (right).
The failure is a matter of record but one figure that has
often puzzled analysts is that Ford booked a loss of over U$250 million on the
programme at a time when a million dollars was still a lot of money and, depending
on how the conversion is done, that would in 2022 dollars equate to between 2-3
billion. The extent of the loss would be
understandable if the Edsel had been as genuinely new as claimed but it’s
difficult to see where all the money went given that all the expensive
components were borrowed from the existing Ford and Mercury line up:
(1) The engines, although some were of a unique
displacement, were just variations of the existing corporate line-up used in Ford,
Mercury & Lincoln models (the Mileage-maker straight-six and the Y-Block, FE (Ford-Edsel) &
MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) V8s).
(2) The platform, transmissions and suspensions were
shared with Ford & Mercury, the wheelbase the only difference.
(3) No dedicated factories were built for the Edsel, the
cars assembled on the same assembly lines used by Ford and Mercury.
So the costs involved in the development were relatively less expensive endeavors such as body panels and interior trim. The marketing expenses were presumably high and there were costs associated with the dealer network but the suspicion has long been that the infamous quarter-billion dollar loss was Ford taking advantage of accounting rules, perhaps booking against the Edsel most of the development costs of things like the FE engine, something which would remain in production until 1976. That the Edsel was a big failure is disputed by nobody but financially, the losses may have been both over-stated and to some extent transferred to the taxpayer.
Memories of the Edsel’s grill were revived in 2024 during another debunking exercise. In July that year, a post appeared on X (formerly known as Twitter) claiming there was a passage in J.D. Vance’s (b 1984; US vice president since 2025) book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (2016) in which the then Ohio senator (Republican) boasted of having enjoyed a sexual act with a latex glove, strategically placed between a sofa’s cushions. It was fake news and nothing in the book even hinted at such an experience but quickly the post went viral; it once could take years for urban myths to spread around a few counties but in the social media age such things wiz around the planet in hours. Quickly the tale was debunked but the sofa was a popular choice among the meme-makers. It says something about US politics that so many really wanted to believe "couchgate" was true.
