Words: guff, n.
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The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.ONE DARK and stormy night, I was probably the only person in England to wake and read Out of Step, an elegantly emphatic volume of essays by Jonathan Yardley, the Washington Post's weekly reviewer, who, last Sunday, wrote on Fleet Street's exports: "These watered-down Evelyn Waughs rarely know one-quarter as much about the United States as they fancy they do."
Mark Steyn is "the most gifted and least objectionable"; moreover, Yardley can "put up with a good deal more guff from him than from most, but even so guff is often on his menu". From Norwegian for gust of wind, this became ill-smelling; hence, in the 1880s, empty talk, sometimes guff and bugaboo (from Cornish for fool). Guff and nonsense echoes the 18th-century stuff and nonsense.
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