Hi this is Tutor Nick P this is Word Origins 219. The word origin today is boondoggle. Okay. If
somebody wants a screenshot. Let's do it right now. If someone says that something
is a boondoggle, it means that it wastes a lot of time , money and does not accomplish anything of
significance or nothing significant in the end. It is especially used for government plans
or programs. All right. We've got a second meaning here too. It can also just refer to any work
or task of very little or no value. All right. Let's continue. The origin of the word boondoggle
was coined by Robert H Link. It referred to a braided ring that was made to hold a neckerchief.
Yeah. The... this was actually for the boy scouts. If you see some old pictures of
boy scouts sometimes you see that it looks like they have some sort of a handkerchief that goes
through this braided ring. So that was really for them. That's where it originally came from.
The term took on its main meaning today when the New York Times used it in an article in reference
to wasteful government programs with the new deal programs created by the FDR administration
to create jobs. So this is going back to the great depression. Remember when FDR got in and he wanted
to create a lot of jobs but you know , you should create jobs , but you should still create jobs
of something significant. You know, build infrastructure or something along that line.
It made front page news when it was discovered that the government was spending more than
three million dollars on training unemployed white collar workers with instruction in ballet dancing,
shadow puppetry and making boondoggles. Okay. So again I don't know if this is really going
to significantly stimulate the economy or but a lot of people thought this is kind of a
waste of money. Because remember everything you print eventually the people have to pay it back
anyway. So all completely unnecessary since the word boondoggle was the funniest
sounding , you know , and it became known as the useless project that wastes a lot of money,
time and energy basically. All right. And we have three examples to show just how we may use
it. One of the most famous boondoggles was "the bridge to nowhere. " Two bridges in Alaska were
authorized to be built for a 452 million dollar you know, plan basically... that connected a city
to an island that only had a few dozen people like living there. Now I kind of remember this. This
was around the 2008 election because remember Sarah Palin used to be the governor of Alaska
and this I think was one of the things that you know, she pushed to stop. Because it seemed like
a real waste of money. She wanted to show that she was more fiscally responsible. So that's why this
kind of came up in Alaska but whoever originally approved it you know, they were wasting a lot of
money just for you know a few dozen people that live here. They didn't really need to build these
bridges. Again you know, infrastructure is good as long as it's you know worthwhile to doing it and
helps so many people. But let's continue. Shrimp on a treadmill was another famous boondoggle. In
2007 the national science foundation committed more than five hundred thousand dollars
to examine the mobility of shrimp to see how well they can move and they put them on the treadmill.
You know, the exercise machine that everybody usually walks or runs on. Okay. Good. And the
last one we have here. Number three is a more general one. We need to get rid of that wasteful
program. It is a real boondoggle. So that's exactly the way we may hear it used. Anyway,
I hope you got it. I hope it is clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.