z In ancient Greece, a paean was a hymn of invocation or thanksgiving
to Apollo or another Greek deity. Today, the word is used more
generally to refer to a hymn of praise or thanksgiving or to speech
or writing that expresses praise.z Paean is often used for critical acclaim of books, plays, and movies,
as in: “The play received a paean from the usually negative critics.”Claptrap (noun)
Pretentious nonsense; insincere speech.z Originally, claptrapPHDQWVSHHFKRUDQ\DUWL¿FHWKURXJKZKLFKD
person tried to trap an audience into clapping. The noun can still
carry that same meaning today.z Not surprisingly, claptrap is often used to describe political
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supporters for the primary, but it was largely partisan claptrap that
won’t play well in the general election.” The use of claptrap is not,
however, restricted to politics alone. You might hear claptrap at
work from your colleagues or at a neighborhood get-together from
the local blowhard.z English has at least 40 synonyms for claptrap, including sham,
KRNXP, tripe, tosh, bosh, rubbish, humbug, SRSS\FRFN, balderdash,
blarney, bombast, babble, blather, twaddle, and many others.Bunk (noun)
Foolish, untrue talk; nonsense.z %XQN is a toponym, that is, a word named after a place. Buncombe
is a county in North Carolina that was represented in 1820 by a
congressman named Felix Walker. In one session, as Walker was
making a longwinded speech, his fellow congressmen called for
him to sit down, but he refused, saying that he was not speaking to