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Word of the Day: Bogus
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
I’m not sure what you think, but to me, some English words, such as bogus, just look and sound funny.
If something is described as bogus, then it’s not real or legal. It’s counterfeit.
Unfortunately, the origin of today’s word has been lost to history.
After a bit of research, I can tell you that before bogus became an adjective to describe counterfeit money, it was a noun indicating the machine used to manufacture counterfeit money.
Back in the 1800s, a bogus was a machine used to counterfeit money.
The English language is fluid, and words commonly change spellings and take on entirely different meanings.
That’s the history, but how is the word used today?
Well, it’s used in various ways. Some people try to make fraudulent insurance claims for accidents or damage to their property.
These claims are referred to as bogus.
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During and after the 2020 US presidential election, the Trump campaign tried to prove the election was ‘stolen’ by making bogus claims of fraud and presenting bogus documentation in court, various courts actually, around the country.
To help people keep their heads above water, during this pandemic, governments have subsidized those who need it.
Now that the money handed out has been spent, it’s coming to light that some claims and information people submitted to their governments have proven to be bogus.
Some Japanese have falsified tax information from previous years to receive a larger subsidy, for example.
It’s well known that the government moves slowly, but it does move, and it will discover all of these bogus claims and falsified documents in time.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 62.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.