askchapo

22524 readers

56 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

Posts must ask a question.
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
Try [email protected] if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
Posts about mental health should go in [email protected] you are loved here :meow-hug: but !mentalhealth is much better equipped to help you out <3.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Is there an American idiom equivalent to a cock and bull story? (upload.wikimedia.org)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm American but I can't think of one.

Cock and bull story

"Cock and bull story" is an English-language idiom for a far-fetched and fanciful story or tale of highly dubious validity. It is often used to describe a description of events told by someone who is being deceitful or giving an excuse, perhaps unconvincingly. The first recorded use of the phrase in English was in John Day's 1608 play Law-trickes or Who Would Have Thought It:

What a tale of a cock and a bull he told my father.

These folk etymologies are cock and bull stories. "It is said" might as well be written as "This colorful explanation is a cock and bull story".

The inns on Watling Street

The Cock and the Bull inns in Stony Stratford were staging posts for rival coach lines on Watling Street, the London–Birmingham turnpike road. It is said that local people, regarding the passengers staying at the inns as a source of news, were told fanciful stories; there was even rivalry between the two inns as to who could tell the most outlandish story.

These inns are still in existence: the Cock Hotel is documented to have existed [in one form or another] on the current site since at least 1470; the present building dates from 1742. The history of The Bull is less well documented but is certainly older than 1600; the present building is "late eighteenth century".

According to another source, the rival inns were in Fenny Stratford, a nearby town also on Watling Street, but no such hostelries exist there today. There is no reliable support for the Watling Street etymology of the phrase.

top 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

It's not quite the same but "Fish Story" is pretty similar. I feel like "Cock and Bull" is a lie to make you not look bad, where "Fish Story" is a lie to make you look extra good

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A "tall tale" maybe?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

Same, we also have the lovely verb "bullshitting"

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

yes but replace the "u" in bull with an "a" to find out

bonus points: add torture at the end of the phrase when you do it

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

blob-stop get your impure thoughts out of my cock and balls analogy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Seconding "tall tales," although that has a connotation of entertainment instead of deceit.

If you're telling a big fancy lie that's kind of obviously a lie but also harmless, that lie might be called a "whopper."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Folk etymologies can be pretty neat even if they are just a lie. People love stories. For example the actual etymology of the word posh is boring: "early 20th century: perhaps from slang posh, denoting either a dandy or a coin of small value."

There is no evidence to support the folk etymology that posh is formed from the initials of port out starboard home (referring to the more comfortable accommodation, out of the heat of the sun, on ships between England and India).

One of the more frequently repeated explanations of the origin of a word is the story that posh, comes from the initials of ‘port out, starboard home’. This is supposed to refer to the location of the more desirable cabins—on the port side on the outward trip and on the starboard side on the return—on passenger ships between Britain and India in the 19th century. Such cabins would be sheltered from the heat of the sun or benefit from cooling breezes, and so were reserved by wealthy passengers.

Sadly, there is no evidence to support this neat and ingenious explanation. The P&O steamship company is supposed to have stamped tickets with the letters P.O.S.H., but no tickets like this have ever been found. A more likely explanation is that the word comes from a 19th-century slang term for a dandy, from thieves' slang for ‘money’. The first recorded example of posh is from a 1915 issue of Blackwood's Magazine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Cock and Bull is the best ginger beer brand and I hope someone can one day change my mind.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Shaggy dog story, but not quite?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Shaggy dog stories are sort of an opposite, they never seem to get to the exciting or important part and are just thoroughly pointless and disappointing.