FW: palooka: M-W's Word of the Day

[Jonathan Lighter]

Have mentioned somewhere that I once stumbled across a (genuine) Irish word that seemed to be a conceiveable etymon, but I can't remember what it was. Began with "b" or "bh" maybe ? I stress "conceiveable."

My mother (b. 1915) uses "palooka" as a synonym for a worthless item or "lemon."  She told me thirty-odd years ago it was a word from her childhood.

JL

"Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:
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Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
Subject: FW: palooka: M-W's Word of the Day
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> Below my signoff is the latest item in Merriam-Webster's interesting daily word-presentations. This is a non-shameless plug to subscribe (I have no connection with
> M-W's endeavor).
>
> As for the etymology of "palooka," I'd guess that the graceful boxing of the comic-strip character Joe Palooka was less important to some people than his profession of being in a ring and slugging it out with fellow boxers.
> I'm reminded of baseball player Moe Berg (I read his autobiography many years ago); despite his being a major league player, his father was so disappointed at the career his son chose that he never attended one of his games.
>
> And as for the name Palooka, it looks Slavic. Any connection with Russian poljak "a Pole"?
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
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> The Word of the Day for May 13 is:
>
> palooka \puh-LOO-kuh\ noun
> *1 : an inexperienced or incompetent boxer
> 2 : oaf, lout
>
> Example sentence:
> "Before Ali, they say, boxing was just a bunch of palookas punching each other." (Joseph D. O'Brian, _American Heritage_, October 1991)
>
> Did you know?
> The origin of "palooka" is unknown, though various theories have been put forth (some sources credit the baseball player and sportswriter Jack Conway with the coinage, for example). "Palooka" first appeared in print in 1924, and may have been popularized by a comic strip titled "Joe Palooka" (by Ham Fisher), which began a few years later. The probable connection between Fisher's comic and "palooka" only adds to the mystery surrounding this term, however. Joe Palooka was a boxer who was neither incompetent nor clumsy and oafish, and yet the word "palooka" came to have these negative meanings. In addition, limited evidence shows that "palooka" is occasionally used as a general synonym for "rookie" and also as a term describing horses with very little chance of winning.
>
> *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
>
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