dazzle

if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull

In lieu of concrete facts or exceptional wit, you can convince people with artful, flowery, or misleading speech. ("Bull" is a slang term meaning something utterly untrue or wildly exaggerated, short for the rude term "bullshit." ) The phrase is popularly attributed to actor W.C. Fields. My dad loved telling the most ridiculous tall tales. His real life had always been pretty unremarkable, so he adopted the motto, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull." There no way any of Paul's adventures actually happened. He seems like a real "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull" kind of guy. "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull"? Seriously? No, I don't want some wild yarn, I want the truth!

See also: bull, dazzle, if

razzle-dazzle

Excitement, attention, or fanfare. This is actually an event for a very serious cause, once you get past all the razzle-dazzle.

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

razzle-dazzle

(ˈræzlæˈdæzlæ)

n. flamboyant publicity; hype. After all the razzle-dazzle dies down, we’ll see what things are really like.

McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.