The contemporary American philosopher Harry Frankfurt has an essay titled *On Bullshit*, published in 1986. Finding a good Persian equivalent for the word *bullshit* is both easy and difficult. It is easy because in everyday speech we have familiar equivalents for it, but in analytical and written language there is no suitable word that conveys the depth of what this phenomenon does to our minds.

I asked artificial intelligence to suggest a new Persian word, based on Frankfurt’s description of *bullshit*. The word the AI created and proposed was *tār-kubi*. Although at first it seemed a little strange to me, after reflecting on the philosophical reasons for the choice I came to like this AI-created term—perhaps its first use in Persian—and in the rest of this text I will use *tār-kubi* in place of *bullshit*.

Structurally, *tār-kubi* can be analysed in this way: someone who is bullshitting increases the “darkness” and “ambiguity” of meaning and discourse and, through this action, traps others in a “web” of useless and empty information that bears no relation to truth or to the fundamental questions of the world in which we live.
The word *tār* in *tār-kubi* simultaneously points toward darkness, ambiguity and an informational web that functions like a trap, while *kubi*—the act of beating or hammering—suggests a deliberate and active practice different from passive or unknowing speech. The fundamental and ultimate aim of *tār-kubi* is to draw the audience into this obscure network emptied of the light of meaning.

But what does Harry Frankfurt tell us in this work about *bullshitting*, or what I am calling *tār-kubi*?

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