the early days of "baloney"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

On 5/3/2013 6:28 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ....
> Exx. like this are maddening because it's hard not to read later meanings
> into them, even if they weren't intended.
>
> In this case, though, the story seems pointless if "boloney" is meant
>   literally. What's more, in that case the liquor-seeker would have been
> more likely to have muttered something about "a pound o' bologna," the
> words used by the shopkeeper.
>
> If, on the other hand, "a lot of baloney" was already a familiar idiom, the
> point would be its singular appropriateness in this case.
--

One possibility is that the 'joke' consists merely in the replacement of
(the conventional) "lot of blarney" with (the novel) "lot of baloney".

Such a 'joke' -- conceivably even this very one -- MAY have actually
been the source of the "baloney" under discussion, I think.

-- Doug Wilson

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