‘Bumf’ is my favorite word of the moment. It means worthless paper, as in reports and memoranda from corporate managers, or the printed versions of politicians’ Fourth of July speeches, or inane printed forms and instructions of any description, or all that sleazy merchandising junk in your mailbox.

Bumf comes in every conceivable shape and color, and is employed by every kind of obfuscator and mountebank under the sun. Bumf tries to disguise itself as something of value or importance, but its true putrescent nature always reveals itself, just as dead fish always rise to the surface of the pond.

Like so much in the world that is useless and unwanted, bumf seems to proliferate. Bumf begets more bumf, and each day the stuff multiplies, threatening to bury us in an avalanche of annoying, stupid, good-for-nothing paper. The only thing bumf has going for it is its wonderful name.

And it is a wonderful name indeed, with a wonderfully vulgar etymology. Bumf is British slang for toilet paper, the word being an abridged form of bumfodder. And so, when you are asked for the eighty-ninth time tomorrow to fill out another form allegedly protecting your privacy, know that what you are dealing with is bumf and remember what bumf’s true purpose is. This will make you feel better — not good, but better.

Everything has brightened considerably for me since I discovered there was a word called bumf. I needed it badly, not only for what the word means but for the way it sounds. It’s the kind of word you can go around saying over and over, and it just keeps getting better. Bumf… bumf… Bumf… bumf… bumf.

Try it. You’ll see what I mean. In fact, bumf is so pleasing it acts like a kind of linguistic endorphin. Saying it aloud is guaranteed to improve your mood. If you are already in a good mood, it will put you in a better mood. And it may even bring on an attack of poesy.

Here is a bumf-inspired free verse whose only justification seems to be that it’s fun to say out loud, like bumf itself. The verse certainly has no other value. It has an irregular rhyme scheme and a club-footed meter. It does not instruct and provides no insight into human behavior. It has no symbolic design, no mystical significance, no moral ambition. In other words, it doesn’t mean anything. At least that’s the way it strikes me, and I should know; I wrote it.

Bumf, bumfuzzle, bumble, ramble, gambol, tumble;

Grumble, shamble, amble, rumble;

Mamba, mambo, jumbo, gumble;

Fen, gumbo, funnel, fennel;

Funge, fungus, fungible, kennel;

Ken, wen, tunnel, humble;

Tonnel, tonnage, nonage, pottage;

Dotage, footage, runnel, cottage.

This venture into versifying, if that’s what it is, has had a salutary effect. Stringing words together for no other purpose than to hear the way they sound can make you feel musically accomplished, as though you’ve written a tiny symphony. And even if the only audience to hear this masterwork is likely to be, let us hope, yourself, most probably in the private sound chamber of your head, what you are hearing is yours alone. It is your very own creation, one of a kind. And we can all be thankful for that.

Write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your desk for safekeeping. Every once in a while take it out and read it aloud. It may be nonsense. Or it may be art. Or it may be just another example of what we’ve been talking about. Bumf.

Posted by Paul Duffy at February 04, 2009 01:01 PM

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