[ti:Baloney] [ar:Warren Scheer] [al:WORDS AND THEIR STORIES] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]Go to 51voa.com for more... [00:10.06]Now, the VOA [00:12.35]Special English program [00:15.53]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES. [00:19.51]Baloney is a kind of sausage [00:24.03]that many Americans eat often. [00:26.87]The word also has [00:29.46]another meaning in English. [00:31.60]It is used to describe something [00:34.83]¨C usually something someone says [00:37.92]¨C that is false [00:39.61]or wrong or foolish. [00:43.20]Baloney sausage comes [00:46.94]from the name of the [00:48.33]Italian city, Bologna. [00:50.73]The city is famous [00:52.77]for its sausage, [00:54.21]a mixture of smoked, [00:56.15]spiced meat from cows and pigs. [00:59.79]But, boloney sausage [01:02.87]does not taste the same [01:04.41]as beef or pork alone. [01:08.15]Some language experts think [01:12.08]this different taste [01:13.47]is responsible for the birth [01:16.01]of the expression baloney. [01:18.50]Baloney is an idea or statement [01:22.88]that is nothing like the truth... [01:25.07]in the same way [01:26.51]that baloney sausage [01:28.26]tastes nothing like the meat [01:30.71]that is used to make it. [01:32.20]Baloney is a word often [01:35.98]used by politicians to describe [01:38.72]the ideas of their opponents. [01:41.36]The expression has been [01:43.90]used for years. [01:45.04]Fifty years ago, a former [01:49.38]governor of New York state, [01:51.22]Alfred Smith, criticized [01:54.16]some claims by President [01:56.21]Franklin Roosevelt [01:57.60]about the successes [01:59.20]of the Roosevelt administration. [02:01.40]Smith said, "No matter [02:05.72]how thin you slice it, [02:07.32]it is still baloney." [02:09.41]A similar word has almost [02:13.09]the same meaning as baloney. [02:15.23]It even sounds almost the same. [02:18.42]The word is blarney. [02:21.90]It began in Ireland [02:24.65]about sixteen hundred. [02:26.79]The lord of Blarney castle, [02:30.72]near Cork, agreed to [02:33.16]surrender the castle [02:34.65]to British troops. [02:36.09]But he kept making excuses [02:38.94]for postponing the surrender. [02:41.28]And, he made them sound [02:43.68]like very good excuses, [02:45.42]"this is just more [02:48.21]of the same blarney." [02:50.80]The Irish castle now is famous [02:54.83]for its Blarney stone. [02:56.77]Kissing the stone is thought [03:00.56]to give a person [03:01.60]special powers of speech. [03:03.94]One who has kissed [03:06.83]the Blarney stone, [03:08.02]so the story goes, [03:09.51]can speak words of praise [03:11.85]so smoothly and sweetly [03:13.80]that you believe them, [03:15.45]even when you know [03:17.39]they are false. [03:19.58]A former Roman Catholic bishop [03:23.21]of New York City, Fulton Sheen, [03:25.81]once explained, [03:27.10]"Baloney is praise so thick [03:30.68]it cannot be true. [03:32.08]And blarney is praise [03:34.57]so thin we like it." [03:36.96]Another expression is pulling [03:42.28]the wool over someone's eyes. [03:44.22]It means to make someone [03:47.02]believe something that is not true. [03:49.36]The expression goes back [03:52.04]to the days when men wore false hair, [03:55.33]or wigs, similar to those worn [03:58.21]by judges today in British courts. [04:01.10]The word wool was [04:04.63]a popular joking word for hair. [04:06.68]If you pulled a man's wig [04:09.46]over his eyes, [04:10.51]he could not see [04:11.80]what was happening. [04:12.90]Today, when you pull the wool [04:16.68]over someone's eyes, [04:17.92]he cannot see the truth. [04:20.61](MUSIC) [04:31.76]This VOA Special English program, [04:35.84]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, [04:38.03]was written by Marilyn Christiano. [04:40.47]I'm Warren Scheer.