A Load of Poppycock

And I am absolutely NOT talking about the snack food. In this context I am using the word poppycock this way:

pop·py·cock (pŏp’ē-kŏk’) Pronunciation Key
n. Senseless talk; nonsense.

[Dutch dialectal pappekak : pap, pap (from Middle Dutch pappe, perhaps from Latin pappa, food) + kak, dung (from kakken, to defecate, from Middle Dutch kacken, from Latin cacāre; see kakka- in Indo-European roots).]

Online Etymology Dictionary
poppycock
1865, probably from Du. dialect pappekak, from M.Du. pappe “soft dung” (see pap) + kak “dung,” from L. cacare “to excrete.”

[source dictionary.com]

Apparently I used the word improperly in a couple of posts here on my blog in referring to a snack made for me by my wife. How do I know I misused the word? I got a letter:

download <%media(20070220-pcletter.pdf|PDF of letter" /> (208 kb) to follow along.

*** Let me qualify before continuing. I am feeling particularly grumpy today so a poorly written letter from a corporate lawyer wasn’t a welcome thing this morning.***

Here we go:

You spelled my name wrong. My last name is Browne not Brown, which is a colour or the last name of a favourite cartoon character of mine.

Second our postal code is incorrect. I’m not sure what country you’re trying to send mail to but it’s not Canada.

Third, you spelled your own product name wrong in the second paragraph of the letter. Perhaps you should add your product’s name to your word processor’s dictionary so the mistake doesn’t happen again. Just a helpful hint.

Finally, I immediately changed the wording in the offending posts on our “company’s websites” (personal blogs… wtf?). The snack my wife makes for me at Christmas time will be from this point on referred to as censored snack. See posts here: post one and post two from my blog and this one (I think the main offender as it shows up on page one of google using the offending word and ‘recipe’ in a simple search) from Carol’s blog.

When Google crawls us again this referral will go away.

Our sincerest apologies to the company in question. We will never ever refer to you or your products again. Also we shall not ever purchase or consume your products again, but will choose a competitor. Also we hope many people who read our blogs will respond in kind.

Fiddle faddle… one of Dad’s favourite words. He used it to replace another word that starts with F and is sometimes coupled with ‘off’. Which is something I’d like to tell a certain letter writer.

Here’s an edited video from one of the offending posts: