Bamboozle. I really love some words, and this is one of them. Maybe not the meaning, so much. But I sure do like to say it.
There are some words in the English language that simply sound fun. Bamboozle. I sounds like a drunken roller coaster. But underneath is a word that means something fairly serious: to deceive, confuse, or trick someone.
If somebody bamboozles us, they have fooled us through misleading information. They’ve distracted us. Or manipulated us.
Maybe a slick salesperson on social media reels us into buying something we never even needed. Or worse yet, some politician talks really eloquently around a subject. And they do it so skillfully, we are convinced they are telling the truth. That, my friends, is textbook bamboozling.
The word dates back to the early 1700s. It first known use appeared around 1703. Interestingly, nobody is completely sure where it came from. Its origins remain officially unknown, which somehow feels appropriate for a word tied to confusion and trickery. But somebody started all of this “bamboozling,” and now we have it.
One famous critic of the word was Irish writer Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels. In 1710, Swift complained that words like “bamboozle” were corrupting the English language. He viewed them as slang invented by clever troublemakers and expected them to disappear quickly. He was wrong. More than 300 years later, the word is still alive and well.
I know how Swift feels, because I have some of the words that have been added to the dictionary in recent years, like: Skibidi, Rizz, Sus, Bussin’, Gyatt, and more.
I bristle against these words. And I know I shouldn’t. I just want the English language to remain noble, or something. I want it to stand up straight. “Hey. Quit slouching over there.”
Anyway. Back to Bamboozle.
English has never been short on words for deception, either. Bamboozle, it seems, is in good company. Words like hoodwink, hornswoggle, flimflam, buffalo, con, and humbug. Okay, so maybe these words aren’t standing up so straight either.
Honestly, if we really think about it, the English language may be one of the great bamboozlers of all time. Half the words break their own rules. Many of the spellings make no sense at all. Weird words. And on.
But we keep using the English language anyway. Bamboozled.
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“The English language is like a magic mirror. It reflects the soul of the people who speak it.” — Salman Rushdie
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“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter.” — Mark Twain
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“Language is the dress of thought.” — Samuel Johnson
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“Our language is funny — a ‘fat chance’ and a ‘slim chance’ are the same thing.” — J. Gustav White
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