hokum orig. U.S. Theatrical slang.
(ˈhəʊkəm)
Also hocum.
[? A blending of hocus-pocus and bunkum.]
Speech, action, properties, etc., on the stage, designed to make a sentimental or melodramatic appeal to an audience. Also transf. Hence gen., bunkum.
| 1917 Sun (N.Y.) 5 Aug. iii. 3/7 ‘Jasbo’ is a form of the word common in the varieties, meaning the same as ‘hokum’, or low comedy verging on vulgarity. 1922 C. Sandburg Slabs of Sunburnt West 25 Hokum—they lap it up. 1926 N.Y. Times 29 Aug., This may be groundling comedy, but it is not pure hokum. 1926 Ladies' Home Jrnl. Apr. 38 ‘What they tell is..bold and defiant realism.’ ‘Bold and defiant hokum, I should call it.’ 1927 Sunday Express 17 Apr. 4 Channing Pollock believed that in ‘The Fool’ he had written a work of genius. Even when other people said it was hokum he still went on. 1928 Publishers' Weekly 16 June 2440 It is pure hokum to suggest that all authors are always interesting. 1928 Sunday Dispatch 15 July 15/1 The Adelphi..was occupied by a Mr. Sam Bernard with a musical play called ‘The Belle of Bond Street’—what an outrage that ‘Girl’ and ‘Belle’ hokum must have become! 1930 Publishers' Weekly 15 Mar. 1559 In spite of the fact that the hokum of it all has been pointed out to them. 1937 Daily Tel. 26 Oct. 8/5 His story is what the film trade calls ‘hokum’, the recipe as before with inferior or stale ingredients. 1970 New Yorker 12 Dec. 125/1 Most people in Washington dismissed this statement as a piece of sentimental hokum. 1973 Washington Post 5 Jan. B7/4 The Poseidon Adventure..strictly formula hokum but reasonably diverting. |