Sunday Word: Boondoggle
boondoggle [boon-dog-uhl, -daw-guhl]
noun:
1 a wasteful and worthless project undertaken for political, corporate, or personal gain, typically a government project funded by taxpayers
2 work of little or no value done merely to keep or look busy
3 a product of simple manual skill, as a plaited leather cord for the neck or a knife sheath, made typically by a camper or a scout
verb:
to deceive or attempt to deceive
Examples:
These subsidies are a boondoggle for taxpayers, who have spent nearly $30 billion on stadiums over the past 34 years, not counting property-tax exemptions or federal revenues lost to tax-exempt municipal bonds. (Dan Moore, Taxpayers Are About to Subsidize a Lot More Sports Stadiums, The Atlantic, October 2022)
Admittedly, he explains, "many of these boondoggles were hare-brained ideas to begin with, others were solid ideas that went wrong operationally or were short of financing," a not unusual problem in the Atlantic provinces. (Burton K Janes, The boondoggles of Newfoundland and Labrador, Saltwire, September 2017)
Some commentators have called for the Olympics - or, to be more blunt, the IOC's financial boondoggle - to be scrapped altogether. (Ishaan Tharoor, Japan's Olympics kick off amid a cascade of disasters, Washington Post, July 2021)
No matter how well you plan, something will boondoggle in unexpected ways. But having a plan means that you can improvise a solution. (Renee Bates, Favorite Finds - In Nashville, Hersavvy, June 2014)
The United States has not embarked upon its formidable program of space exploration in order to make or perpetuate a gigantic astronautic boondoggle. There are good reasons, hard reasons for this program. (George Saintsbury, 'The Practical Values of Space Exploration: Report of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, US House of Representatives, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session')
Origin:
When boondoggle popped up in the early 1900s, lots of people tried to explain where the word came from. One theory traced it to an Ozarkian word for 'gadget', while another related it to the Tagalog word that gave us boondocks. Another hypothesis suggested that boondoggle came from the name of leather toys Daniel Boone supposedly made for his dog. But the only theory that is supported by evidence is much simpler. In the 1920s, Robert Link, a scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts of America, apparently coined the word to name the braided leather cords made and worn by scouts. The word came to prominence when such a boondoggle was presented to the Prince of Wales at the 1929 World Jamboree, and it's been with us ever since. Over time, it developed the additional sense describing a wasteful or impractical project. (Merriam-Webster)