"bald-headed"

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:54 AM -0500 11/29/09, George Thompson wrote:
>The OED has this definition of the adjective "bald-headed" in its
>American colloquial sense:
>  b. colloq. phr. (orig. U.S.) to go bald-headed (into, for, at), to
>stake everything, to disregard consequences, to attack without care
>or thought; also to go it bald-headed.
>
>A passage from the Chicago Tribune submitted to a SABR group shows a
>bit of a twist:
>
>[Reprint from unknown paper in the Chicago Tribune (20 Jan 1878).
>"There are some things that women can't do. The teachings of
>centuries have established the fact a woman can't play base-ball.
>None but a perverted and baldheaded advocate of female suffrage
>would permit the assumption to daily in his mind that a woman could
>throw a ball underhand or attempt to catch one without shutting both
>eyes just when she should see biggest.  ***
>
>So here, "uncompromising".
>
>When I was a kid, to "throw like a girl" meant to be unable to throw
>overhand, not underhand.
>
>
I'm not sure about the "unable to", but it did refer to the practice
of throwing using just the wrist (and the arm held in a vertical
position, near the ear) rather than using the shoulder.

LH

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