Bull

Bull, a ludicrous blunder in speech implying some obvious absurdity or contradiction. The origin of the name is supposed to be due to the contrast in papal bulls between the assertion of excessive humility in the title, by which the pope styles himself 'servant of servants,' and his assumption of absolute supremacy and authority over the world. It is found with much the same sense as early as the 14th century in the Cursor Mundi. Bulls in their best form are usually alleged to be an especial prerogative of Irishmen—at least it is certain that the best examples have come from Ireland. Coleridge, remarking on the well-known bull, 'I was a fine child, but they changed me,' says: 'The bull consists in the bringing together two incompatible thoughts, with the sensation but without the sense of their connection.' Sydney Smith, whose authority is supreme in this region, says: 'A bull is an apparent congruity, and real incongruity of ideas, suddenly discovered.' It is 'the very reverse of wit; for as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real.' See the Essay on Irish Bulls (1803) by Miss Edgeworth and her father.