More on "Boola Boola" and Barry Popik

[Fred Shapiro]

A few months ago I criticized Barry Popik for his July 13 posting, which
described a 1900 newspaper mention of "Boola Boola" without Barry's
acknowledging the contributions of two African-Americans who wrote the
song that was ripped off by "Boola Boola."  I wasn't really criticizing
Barry for this, rather I was chastising his denunciations of everyone who
doesn't have the complete corpora of ADS-L and that big-circulation
journal, Comments on Etymology, memorized.

I now want to do justice to Barry by pointing out that I have been
studying the question of the origin of the Yale "Boola Boola" song and I
have realized that his 1900 newspaper article is of tremendous
significance in casting doubt on the standard account of Allan M. Hirsh's
having written the song.  To put it plainly, the mention Barry has
discovered appears to flatly contradict Hirsh's own story of the song's
composition.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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