Series One

The BBC's six-part TV series, Balderdash & Piffle, was broadcast in the UK weekly on BBC2 from Monday 2 January to Monday 6 February 2006, with a follow-up programme on 16 April. The series looked at our fascination with words and the stories behind them, and was made in collaboration with the Oxford English Dictionary.

Each week's programme was based on words beginning with one letter of the alphabet. Guest presenters explored evidence gathered by the public after the OED and the BBC appealed for their help in tracking down the origins of 50 words—the first OED-BBC Wordhunt.

Oxford University Press gave online access to the amazing riches of the OED throughout the series, so that readers were able to look up words in the online Dictionary free of charge.

Many entries were improved and entirely new ones were added as a result of the huge success of the series. View the findings that changed the Dictionary!

We hope that viewers enjoyed the series; but research for the OED never ends, and a new series is coming soon. Please continue wordhunting with our new appeal!