Nobody is sure how the word got started. But it began to appear in American newspapers in the eighteen hundreds. A newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts said the word came from a criminal whose name was Borghese. The newspaper said Borghese wrote checks to people although he did not have enough money in the bank. After he wrote the checks, he would flee from town. So, people who were paid with his checks received nothing. The newspaper said Americans shortened and changed the criminal's name Borghese, to bogus.
没人能够确定这个单词是如何诞生的。但19世纪时,它开始出现在美国的报纸上。马萨诸塞州波士顿的一份报纸称,这个单词来源于一个名叫贝佳斯的罪犯。这家报纸说,贝佳斯银行没有足够的钱,但他给人们开空头支票,然后逃离镇子。所以,收到他支票的人们什么都没得到。该报称,美国人把这个罪犯的名字简写并做了点改变,就成了bogus。
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A writer for the magazine "American Speech" said he first saw the expression used in nineteen seventy-one. It was on a sign that a student carried during a protest demonstration at a university. The message on the sign was that the student felt ripped off, or cheated.
"American Speech"杂志的一位作者称,他于1971年第一次看到这种说法。它出现在一所大学示威活动期间一个学生举着的标牌上。标牌上的信息是,这个学生觉得被欺骗了。