Baloney or Blarney? 词汇典故：胡扯与巧言令色

 

Baloney or Blarney? 词汇典故：胡扯与巧言令色

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Baloney is a kind of sausage that many Americans eat often. The word also has another meaning in English. It is used to describe something – usually something someone says – that is false or wrong or foolish.

Baloney sausage comes from the name of the Italian city, Bologna. The city is famous for its sausage, a mixture of smoked, spiced meat from cows and pigs. But, boloney sausage does not taste the same as beef or pork alone.

Some language experts think this different taste is responsible for the birth of the expression baloney. Baloney is an idea or statement that is nothing like the truth, in the same way that baloney sausage tastes nothing like the meat that is used to make it.

Baloney or Blarney?

Baloney or Blarney?Baloney is a word often used by politicians to describe the ideas of their opponents.

The expression has been used for years. A former governor of New York state, Alfred Smith, criticized some claims by President Franklin Roosevelt about the successes of the Roosevelt administration. Smith said, “No matter how thin you slice it, it is still baloney.”

A similar word has almost the same meaning as baloney. It even sounds almost the same. The word is blarney. It began in Ireland about sixteen hundred.

The lord of Blarney castle, near Cork¹, agreed to surrender the castle to British troops. But he kept making excuses for postponing² the surrender. And, he made them sound like very good excuses, “this is just more of the same blarney.”

The Irish castle now is famous for its Blarney stone. Kissing the stone is thought to give a person special powers of speech. One who has kissed the Blarney stone, so the story goes, can speak words of praise so smoothly³ and sweetly that you believe them, even when you know they are false.

A former Roman Catholic bishop⁴ of New York City, Fulton Sheen, once explained, “Baloney is praise so thick it cannot be true. And blarney is praise so thin we like it.”

Another expression is pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. It means to make someone believe something that is not true. The expression goes back to the days when men wore false hair, or wigs⁶, similar to those worn by judges today in British courts.

 

The word wool was a popular joking word for hair. If you pulled a man’s wig⁵ over his eyes, he could not see what was happening. Today, when you pull the wool over someone’s eyes, he cannot see the truth.

1 cork   

n.软木，软木塞

参考例句：

• We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
• Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。

2 postponing   

v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He tried to gain time by postponing his decision. 他想以迟迟不作决定的手段来争取时间。 来自辞典例句
• I don't hold with the idea of postponing further discussion of the matter. 我不赞成推迟进一步讨论这件事的想法。 来自辞典例句

3 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

4 bishop   

n.主教，（国际象棋）象

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• Two years after his death the bishop was canonised.主教逝世两年后被正式封为圣者。

5 wig   

n.假发

参考例句：

• The actress wore a black wig over her blond hair.那个女演员戴一顶黑色假发罩住自己的金黄色头发。
• He disguised himself with a wig and false beard.他用假发和假胡须来乔装。

6 wigs   

n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They say that wigs will be coming in again this year. 据说今年又要流行戴假发了。 来自辞典例句
• Frank, we needed more wigs than we thought, and we have to do some advertising. 弗兰克，因为我们需要更多的假发，而且我们还要做点广告。 来自电影对白