'Critical' Age

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:35 PM -0500 3/13/00, Alice Faber wrote:
>>
>This came up on alt.folklore.urban last year. Apparently there was a
>blurb in Smithsonian Magazine, suggesting that the story goes back to
>some misprinted ("boil" for "Biol") bands in the 1920s. For more
>details, see the archived post at
>http://www.urbanlegends.com/animals/wash_boil_and_serve.html.
>
This site--or rather its cousin
http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/etymology/index.html
--has a number of useful listings at which such storied chestnuts involving
the "origins" of posh, OK, fuck, cop, and crap are debunked (one of the
debunkers being our own Jesse S.), but Barry better steer clear of the
listing purporting to provide the history of "hot dog".

larry