the early days of "baloney"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Great article, Ben. You found some wonderful early citations for boloney.

The Language Log post and Ben's article referenced the fun 1926 saying
about slicing "bolognie". The discovery of this citation was announced
on this very list back in 2010. The citation was later added to
Barry's fine webpage and the seminal reference work The Dictionary of
Modern Proverbs.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;JwjOSg;201008081944080400B

Here is some additional text from the 1926 citation.

[ref] 1926 May 9, The Sun, "No Matter How Thin You Slice It": Gab Of
Collegiate Papas And Self And Self-Starting Flappers Is Always
"Bolognie" Anyhow And In Sort Of Code by Katherine Scarborough, Page
MS1, Baltimore, Maryland. (ProQuest)[/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
"No matter how thin you slice it." Which, as every flapper knows, is
merely bologna (pronounced "bolognie") served in the grand manner.

It is a subtle, trenchant and convincing expression which the young
person with one earring uses to inform her collegiate papa that his
best line is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

For "bolognie" is to the slang of the moment what applesauce was to
the vocabularies of yesteryear.
[End excerpt

My data file from 2010 has a cite that might help illustrate the
semantic transition. In 1920 and 1921 baloney was used to label an
oafish boxer as Ben notes. In the following example "big baloney" is
used to label another type of person: a liar.

[ref] 1922 October, The Mentor, Volume 23, Number 12, The Gopher Boys
by M.S.H., Start Page 23, Quote Page 23, Edited and printed by inmates
of the Massachusetts State Prison at Charlestown. (Google Books full
view)[/ref]

http://books.google.com/books?id=FIRIAAAAYAAJ&q=baloney#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
They get me cuckoo, with their tales of junk; which ain't truth, but
just colossal bunk! Old Munchausen copped the Liar's prize, but he was
a big baloney, and I can open your eyes!
[End excerpt]

Regarding the introductory sentence of Ben's excellent column: The
article at Inside Higher Ed stated that Professor Bass was supportive
of the administration position and critical of some fellow faculty, I
think. The term "bologna" (with the odd spelling) was used by Bass to
label the stance or rationale of some faculty and not the
administration.

Garson

On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      the early days of "baloney"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My new Word Routes column is on how "baloney" came to mean "nonsense"
> in the 1920s -- including some freshly discovered examples from
> newspaper articles and comic strips:
>
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/how-baloney-got-phony/
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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