balloon juice
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Etymology: Extended from synonymous hot air, gas. Attested in both senses from the 19th century.
Senses: examples: text: The senate was inflated with a superior grade of wind, oratory, and balloon juice yesterday. This unusual condition was brought about by heated discussion of the Coulson-Gandy contest case.
ref: 1895 February 1, “Day of Droll Discussion”, in The Guthrie Daily Leader, Guthrie, Oklahoma, page 1:
text: All this underscores that the hyperactive posturing from Bryan and others on the dump is so much balloon juice. They’ll say anything to hoodwink voters into believing the dump isn’t inevitable, when all signs point otherwise.
ref: 1992 December 22, “So much balloon juice: Hushing up dissent in the House”, in Las Vegas Review-Journal, page 8B:
text: Iacocca’s book is filled with managerial balloon juice. “The only way you can motivate people is to communicate with them.” […] He exhibits general ignorance of business fundamentals.
ref: 2007, P. J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance, page 144:
synonyms: word: bunkum
word: hokum
word: hooey
word: hot air
word: absurdity
word: all my eye
word: all my eye and Betty Martin
word: applesauce
word: bafflegab
word: balderdash
word: balls
word: baloney
word: banana oil
word: Bandini
word: baragouin
word: batcrap
word: batshit
word: bilgewater
word: blah
word: blather
word: blatherskite
word: bobbins
word: bollocks
word: bosh
word: BS
word: bull
word: bullcrap
word: bulldust
word: bull feathers
word: bullshit
word: bullspeak
word: bunk
word: bunkum
word: bushwah
word: clamjamfrey
word: claptrap
word: cobblers
word: codswallop
word: crap
word: crock
word: crock of shit
word: double Dutch
word: double talk
word: doublespeak
word: dribble
word: drivel
word: eyewash
word: fiddle-faddle
word: flapdoodle
word: flim-flam
word: flizz
word: flummery
word: folderol
word: foolishness
word: footle
word: framis
word: fuckery
word: fuckry
word: fudge
word: galimatias
word: garbage
word: garble
word: gibber
word: gibberish
word: gobbledygook
word: gossip
word: Greek
word: guff
word: gup
word: hoax
word: hocus-pocus
word: hogwash
word: hokum
word: hooey
word: horsefeathers
word: horse hockey
word: horse piss
word: horse puckey
word: horseshit
word: humbug
word: Irish bull
word: jabber
word: jargon
word: jibber-jabber
word: jimjam
word: jive
word: junk
word: lallation
word: macaroni
word: malarkey
word: manure
word: meaninglessness
word: moonshine
word: mumbo jumbo
word: nertz
word: nonsense
word: pie in the sky
word: piffle
word: pigswill
word: poppycock
word: prattle
word: put-on
word: rhubarb
word: rhubarb rhubarb
word: rigmarole
word: rot
word: rubbish
word: ruse
word: santorum
word: shit
word: shite
word: skimble-skamble
word: squit
word: stuff
word: stuff and nonsense
word: tommy-rot
word: tosh
word: tush
word: trash
word: tripe
word: twaddle
word: wass
word: whiff-whaff
word: word salad
glosses: Empty or exaggerated talk lacking in substance, boasting, chatter, nonsense.
examples: text: The shiftless, too lazy to keep up with the pace, and the incompetent oftentimes shrewd business men, but indifferent pharmacist, are compelled to purchase the ready-made articles to keep in touch with the ever increasing list of physicians who are too tired to do their own thinking, and who are willing that the patient should take his chances with the wonderful elixir of balloon juice recommended so highly by Prof. X. of the College of Timbuctoo, and of the composition of which they have not the slightest conception.
ref: 1897, “A druggist on the situation”, in The Pharmaceutical Era, volume XVIII, number 3, page 65:
text: Imbibe Balloon juice! hoist up your courage mountain high! Drink!
ref: 1898, Jonathon Burwell Frost, Arizona, page 29:
text: balloon juice lowerer a total abstainer from liquor LIT: a soda water drinker
ref: [1986, Richard A. Spears, The Slang and Jargon of Drugs and Drink, page 22:
text: We drink chastely—balloon juice (seltzer). Now a British pub is all about booze. I don’t recall people eating much in pubs beyond bangers on sticks, stolid pork pie, Ryvita spears smeared with Marmite.
ref: 2009 October 31, Gina Mallet, “Recalling classics”, in National Post, Don Mills, Ontario, page TO 4:
glosses: Any of various beverages, usually including gas dissolved in liquid.