If I said something was bunk, you would probably think it was foolish or insincere, and rightly so. However, what does that say about bunk beds? Are they foolish? I consider them to be a rather ingenious use of space, quite the opposite of foolish.
The word bunk in the sense of beds probably comes from a bunker, but the nonsense version of bunk has a more interesting etymology.
In Buncombe County, North Carolina a remark was made by its congressman, who defended an irrelevant speech by claiming that he was speaking to Buncombe. Quite the legacy to leave, don’t you think?
Back in high school, I spent a couple of years hanging with the punkers (and a looking like a thrift store refugee in the words of my mother). One time, I was on the city bus with a friend and this foreign guy sitting across from us kept asking if were were “bunk”. It took us several blocks to figure out that he meant “punk”.
» Comment by Renee on September 8, 2003 @ 8:38 amI don’t know why I’m so surprised by the etymology; I’ve found that most speech by politicians can be classified as bunk.
» Comment by Jan on September 9, 2003 @ 6:37 am