#wikitionary

For reasons relating to work, I was looking up something, and got a bit sidetracked, that sidetracking is what this post is about:

So, English has 40 sounds and way more than that ways to spell them, and this means all of these words are pronounced exactly the same: to, too, two, tew, and 2. FYI, in the UK tew can mean prep work, labor, trouble or worry. In the US, if it's used it means constant work, worry, or excitement, as a noun. And it used to mean a cord, string, rope, chain, or net. As a verb... tew

For reasons, what got me to the various words above was this word: hye and its comparative, and superlative forms, hyer, and hyest. Which are the obsolete spellings of high, higher, and highest (Bring 'em back, please!), which are, naturally pronounced the same as their modern spellings. Of course, hye can also mean haste, hurry, to go quickly. It also was in Old English the pronoun for he and they (heo was she back then). Hye can also mean to raise up, to honor, to respect, etc.

Which brings this back to what I was looking up on this Transgender Day Of Remembrance (and Resilience), and that was "What is the correct contraction for They (singular) is, if there is one?"

The answer is: They's. But you must be careful, because they's can also mean "There is" and Their (possessive). I got off subject because, well, me being me, whose major personality trait is Curios(ity) (I will go down the rabbit hole and the worm hole, folks.) This happened, this time, because Wiktionary offers up anagrams. And they's becomes hyest, sythe (older spelling of scythe), and ythes. Ythes is an older poetic form of waves. Ythe, wave, can also be spelled ithe, uðe, uþe, uþæ, yþe.

(countable and uncountable, plural bunkums)

Noun

(slang) Senseless talk; nonsense; a piece of nonsense (countable).

(Washington, DC) Any bombastic political posturing or an oratorical display not accompanied by conviction; speechmaking designed for show or public applause. [1820s]

Etymology

 1830s, from buncombe, from “speaking to Buncombe” (or “for Buncombe”) from Buncombe County, North Carolina, named for Edward Buncombe.

In 1820, Felix Walker, who represented Buncombe County, North Carolina, in the U.S. House of Representatives, rose to address the question of admitting Missouri as a free or slave state. This was his first attempt to speak on this subject after nearly a month of solid debate and right before the vote was to be called. Allegedly, to the exasperation of his colleagues, Walker insisted on delivering the long and wearisome speech. He explained that he wasn't speaking to congress, but "to Buncombe."[1] He was shouted down by his colleagues.[2] His persistent effort made "buncombe" (later respelled "bunkum") a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsense.[1] Although he was unable to make the speech in front of Congress it was still published in a Washington newspaper.[3]

The term became a joke and metaphor in Washington, then entered common usage.

Our readers have, perhaps, often heard of ‘speaking to Buncombe,’ by which phrase is signified a speech not intended or expected to have any influence on those to whom it is addressed, but designed for the speaker’s constituents. It originated with a representative from North Carolina, who came from the county of Buncombe, and who being asked, one day, why he continued to speak to empty benches, ‘O!’ he replied, ‘I am speaking to Buncombe.’  -Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics, 1838-12-15