bold face lie

[Arnold Zwicky]

parallel figures from google.  though there's a cool folk etymology
for BOLDFACE LIE (www.hotlinecy.com/Granger/gran06.htm):
...typesetting. The Boldface Lie - Presumably the lie knowingly
told in print because it was printed for emphasis in a bold type.

this time google does catch the past participle omission with BALD:
"bald face lie" - asks if i meant "bald faced lie"; "baldface lie" -
asks if i meant "baldfaced lie".

                separate        together
BOLD FACE        585            190
BOLD FACED      1960            348
BALD FACE        320             47
BALD FACED      3190            280

there's an interaction for LIE as for LIAR, suggesting two
contributions to the statistics for BOLD FACE (but only one
for BALD FACE):

                FACE    FACED   total
        BOLD     775    2308    3083
        BALD     367    3470    3837
        total   1142    5778    6920

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)