The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
Here's a funny one, from an online political column about Al Franken stepping down.
--- Quote ---Consider the tax bill, which is stitched together from shameless greed and boldface lies.
--- End quote ---
Republicans may well be shameless, but I don't think they've become shameless enough yet to put their lies in boldface. Clearly s/he means "bald-faced lies."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/al-franken-resignation-and-the-selective-force-of-metoo?mbid=nl_Daily%20120817%20Subs&CNDID=26521759&spMailingID=12526068&spUserID=MTMzMTgyNzYxNTMyS0&spJobID=1300779312&spReportId=MTMwMDc3OTMxMgS2
serious crayons:
Oops! I may stand corrected, with (as always) a reference to Shakespeare:
--- Quote --- The third version [after bald-faced and bare-faced] is your boldfaced lie. A story one sometimes hears in support of it falls firmly into the area of folk etymology — that it comes from a lie knowingly told in print because it was printed for emphasis in bold type. But bold-faced goes back to Shakespeare in the sense of a shameless or impudent appearance, so it’s reasonable that a boldfaced lie is one told with a shamelessly bold face. At times it’s regarded as an error, though it’s to be found almost as early as barefaced lie:
The sneer, the sarcasm, the one-sided statement, the perplexing reference, the qualified concession, the bold-faced lie, — all these we could well illustrate by samples of the current crop. -- Eclectic Review, Sept. 1832.
When we call a lie baldfaced or boldfaced ... either one is just fine, though baldfaced is a bit more common. But we could save ourselves trouble by following the rest of the Anglophone world, which avoids the issue simply by using barefaced for most kinds of openly shocking behavior. -- Jan Freeman, writing in the Boston Globe in June 2002.
--- End quote ---
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bal2.htm
Front-Ranger:
There are many kind of lies. Who knew?
At least he did not say unabashedly. One of my least-favorite words lately.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on December 09, 2017, 08:03:00 pm ---At least he did not say unabashedly. One of my least-favorite words lately.
--- End quote ---
Why? ???
Front-Ranger:
It's just way overused. I think people get carried away with the "bash" part of it. Plus, there are so many prefixes and suffixes attached to the root word that it's almost impossible to tell what the word means. Why use so many syllables when a better, shorter word, like "boldly" could be substituted? Nobody knows what "bash" means, anyway. Look it up and it's a verb; or in British English it's a party. And abash by itself? It means "to destroy the self-confidence, poise, or self-possession of". I think a lot of people who use the word don't realize what it means, they just like the sound of it.
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