"potatohead"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/18/2011 09:07 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>"These potatoheads": Irish people; "micks." [in HDAS files; 500,000+ Google
>hits on "Irish potatohead"]

I'm surprised to see that the OED (March 2011) only dates the Irish
connection back to 1948!  It's under sense 1.b, whereas 1.a., dating
to 1705, says:

"a. A person's head likened to a potato, either in appearance, as
being large, bald, ugly, etc., or as implying stupidity.
      Sometimes associated with Irishness; cf. sense 1b."

I'll have a look in American newspapers.

Joel

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