Haver: Verb. Scottish. To talk foolishly; to babble; to hem and haw. Don havered on.
Also, Havers: Interjection. Scottish. Synonymous with Nonsense! Poppycock! So, in usage: Havers!
More to say on havers, but first, what of hem and haw? What of poppycock? Definitions of definitions first, eh?
Hem and haw, hem as in ahem, to get attention, but then haw, a sound to stall. To command the shared space with something to say and then, turns out, actually nothing to say at all, nothing but Ummm . . . errrrr . . . sooooo . . .
And do it we all. Can’t always know what to say all the time. Could in fact be considered polite to fill awkward silences, though case could be made that silence is less awkward than Sooooo . . . ummmm . . .
But stalling, or filling in the silence, or searching for thoughts out loud, these are different from poppycock.
So: Poppycock. Anglicized from Dutch word pappekak, which translates to plain English as soft turd. Poppycock. An interjection for when someone not only hems and haws, but also proceeds to talk nonsense.
For instance, when someone with megaphone says something ridiculously untrue, someone else in the room would not be wrong to interject by shouting out, Poppycock! Or, even more to the point in plain English, Soft turd!
Go on. Next time you are in room with megaphoned ridiculous untruth, try it.
So many words. Words everywhere, strewn all about, twittered around. So many words, scattered. And all the best words now babble, now hem, now haw.
All this havering, this entire essay an attempt at what, none other than nonsense itself. Poppycock, Pappekak.
What I’m currently listening to: Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, Chris Stapleton’s From A Room: Vol. 2, Maggie Rogers’ Heard It In A Past Life
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Peace,
Andrew