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the House but to the voters in Buncombe. In other words, Walker
wanted to make a speech that would be printed in the papers back
home to prove to his constituents that he was working hard.z Because Walker’s speech was long on wind and short on substance,
EXQNXP, with a change in spelling from the place name, became
a term for lofty political mumbo-jumbo. %XQNXP was later
shortened to EXQN.Palaver (noun)- Profuse and idle chit-chat; chatter; empty talk; nonsense.
- Flattery and sweet talk used to persuade.
z Palaver brings to mind the buzz of conversation among students
in the few minutes before class starts. Consider, for example, this
context sentence: “The high school English teacher, annoyed at the
incessant chattering in class, said, ‘Let’s put an end to this palaver
and start our discussion of Macbeth.’”Pablum (noun)Trite, insipid, or simplistic writing, speech, or conceptualization.z Originally, pablum was the trademark name for a soft, bland,
mushy, easy-to-digest cereal developed for infants and invalids
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simplistic, or trite speech or ideas.z Pablum was derived from the related word pabulum, which can refer
to a nourishing substance or to insipid intellectual nourishment.z A wonderful synonym for pablum is pap. Like pablum, pap also
originally referred to soft food for infants and is now used to refer
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“That white paper from the think tank is just intellectual pap.”