The fact that he reached for a word and came up with “humbug”...

[BertrandRussell]

.....really says all you need to know.

Elitist, outdated and out of touch. And that’s before all the other things he is!

Yay I'm elitist outdated and out of touch. 😀😀😀😀

So am I! But I reckon very few younger people would know what it meant. I have a well read 18 year old who was brought up by an elitist, outdated and out of touch mother and he thought it meant “bullshit”

What does it say out of interest?

‘Humbug’ is a word commonly used by politicians. It’s political code for ‘bullshit’ and is understood as such. ‘Mendacious’ is another. It means ‘liar’. MPs are not allowed to call one another liars in Parliament, so they use this code word instead.

Humbug doesn’t mean bullshit. It means (god, I hate this expression!) virtue signalling.

Bah you virtue signaler. Na hasn't got the same ring.

What have you got against the word humbug. It is a traditional expression of the Xmas buying mania in our family.

You are elitist with an elitist dictionary of permissible words.

What else is on your list of words not to be said in your presence.

Purely out of interest.

It's a word an arrogant man might use to dismiss threats of violence against women because he isn't troubled at all by said threats of violence.
This is a man who had such a voluble altercation with his partner that the police were called.
When somebody tells you who they are, listen!

Humbug. I really like the sound of that word it has a nice smooth flow to it.

I do not want to see it banned.

It means deceptive or designed to deceive or mislead. It doesn't mean virtue signalling.

In context the comments he was referring to may have been virtue signalling, but that's not what humbug means.

Anyway, I quite like a (mint) humbug.

Christ I never knew it meant domestic violence. You learn something every day.

It means insincere, disingenuous. It doesn’t mean “virtue signaling”.

Scrooge was an utter bastard then. Well I never.

I can’t see that it beats “inverted pyramid of piffle”.

I can’t see that it’s the most important word in yesterday’s set to either. Surely that honour goes to “surrender”.

But, yay, another thread! So who cares?

I thought it was one of them horrible sweets my nan used to collect. Or a miserable git around christmas 🤔

I can't stand BoJo but I have to say I don't think he's done anything wrong by using the word 'humbug'. Thanks to 'bah, humbug' being part of the popular image of Scrooge, I think it's a reasonably well known expression.

It means (god, I hate this expression!) virtue signalling

No, it doesn't?

Anyway, what does it say about him? We've been sidetracked by etymology.

“Anyway, what does it say about him?“

My initial post pertains.

That hes just like you?

OK...

I'm right so there.

@BertrandRussell if you’re Boris, you can tell us.

You might as well otherwise the thread is a bit pointless.

It doesn't mean virtue signalling! What an odd notion. It means 'Deceptive or false talk or behaviour' (www.lexico.com/en/definition/humbug)

And it reinforces the notion that Johnson doesn't have the brain to think up an intelligent response and instead resorted to name-calling. Also showed he doesn't care about women or respect their views - no surprise there.

FYI OP:

noun
1.
deceptive or false talk or behaviour.
"his comments are sheer humbug"

NOT virtue signalling. Your well read DC has a better grasp of language than you.

Maybe i’m misusing virtue signalling then. Johnson was dismissing people’s fears as disingenuous and point scoring. Not real concerns- just brought up to draw attention to themselves and to make him look bad.