Hokum (noun): false or irrelevant material introduced into a speech, essay, etc., in order to arouse interest, excitement, or amusement.
OR
out-and-out nonsense
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Hokum?s=t
I encountered this word in our readings of “City Limits” by Colson Whitehead in class. The word is first introduced on page two, Paragraph two of the essay, in the first three lines. Whitehead uses this word to explain how people portray or advertise New York is usually never the way that you knew it, thus making the information false or wrong according to your perspective of New York, or in Whiteheads case, “It’s all hokum”. After searching up the definition of hokum, i was able to get a better understanding of how Whitehead used the word in his work, describing how the New York today is wrong compared to how you remembered it.
