Bollocks Defined

Bollocks is one of those wonderful words that makes me proud to be a descendant of those pasty and snaggle toothed natives of the British Isles. The Picts, the Celts, the Gaels, the Franks, the Normans, the Germans and even the Romans (what have the Romans ever done for us?) all left their mark on the language we call English. Instead of being bound by strict rules of usage and meaning like the Romance languages, instead of having to set up the language police like the French, we have this wonderful hodgepodge of words and phrases that have evolved over time to make English one of the most expressive languages in the World, the language of Chaucer, Shakesphere, Donne, Dickens and Dick Francis. And as a result of the Sun Never Setting on the British Empire for 200 years, and the dominance of the US during the last century, English is also the official language of international business, though I am learning Cnatonese as fast as I can.

But I digress. I want to give you a sense of bollocks and bollix as the all-purpose all-stars that they are. The Concise Oxford Disctionary (I can't afford the big one) defines bollocks as British vulgar slang, being of Germanic Origin and originally spelled as ballocks, with bollix being an informal version. But what does it mean, you ask? Why, testicles of course.

And isn't more fun to say "Oh Bollix" than shouting "balls"? Why I have even used the word in business meetings with impunity. And if you are feeling superior, use ballocks, as Kingsley Amis recommends in "The Kings English". But he was always such a classicist snob.

Yet these little words have so many more uses. For instance, to bollix something up is to screw it up or, to use a more vulgar term, to fuck it up. And more germane to this blog, talking bollocks means to talk foolishly or to bullshit. Of course, there is perhaps the most famous occurance of the word in popular culture, on the Sex Pistols first album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols".

So please feel free to work bollocks into your repartee. You will find it most useful and, more importantly, fun.