The Surprising Pleasant Past of the Word Bully

While Donald Trump was still president, a news person said he had a bully pulpit. Given the context, and being interested in linguistics and etymology, I wondered if they were using the term correctly.

You see, the term bully pulpit does not mean ‘using the pulpit to be a bully,’ as would seem to apply to Trump. Not at all.


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Origin of the Word Bully

The English word bully didn’t always mean what it does today. You see, the word bully didn’t always refer to a person who is habitually cruel, insulting, threatening, and who seeks to intimidate others.

There was a time when bully meant great or even excellent. And before that, it meant sweetheart or lover. Like this quote from John Bale, in 1538:

Though she be somewhat old, it is my own sweet bully. — John Bale, Three Laws, 1538

I grew up hearing confusing phrases like bully for you, bully for me. Why would anyone wish we both had a bully? But the phrase really means, great for you and great for me.

You might have called someone a bully fellow, or perhaps you had a bully horse. Mark Twain used it this way in Roughing It: “The captain said she was a bully boat.”

By the late 1800s, our new meaning for bully was taking hold, with something more like ‘blusterer’ in the interim. For a time, both meanings were still used.

By the way, bully also used to refer to pickled food or canned food such as corned beef. Bully-beef, in the army, meant canned meat rations, but this was because it was rumored to be made from old bulls. Bully also used to refer to a scrimmage in football and in hockey.

But what about bully pulpit?

Well today, people often, and understandably, mistake it to mean lecturing or preaching to people in a bullying way.

It was Theodore Roosevelt who coined the term bully pulpit. When he said, “The presidency is a bully pulpit,” he meant that the presidency was an excellent platform from which to spread his ideas.

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