4 ms·

Bold-faced* > Although many people seem to believe that “barefaced lie” is the source of both the “bald” and “bold” versions, it appears that “bold-faced lie”

Bold-faced* > Although many people seem to believe that “barefaced lie” is the source of both the “bald” and “bold” versions, it appears that “bold-faced lie” is by far the oldest, dating back to at least the early 1600s.

egypturnash 7y ago
Bald-faced. https://mentalfloss.com/article/57985/it-bald-faced-or-bold-faced-lie https://mentalfloss.com/article/57985/it-bald-faced-or-bold-...
- mikelyons 7y ago
  Bold-faced. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/07/lie-detection.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/07/lie-detection.htm... Of the two, “bold-faced lie” is by far the more popular, with nearly 1.6 million hits on Google compared with only 39,000 for “bald-faced lie.” Although many people seem to believe that “barefaced lie” is the source of both the “bald” and “bold” versions, it appears that “bold-faced lie” is by far the oldest, dating back to at least the early 1600s. unfortunate dislikes from those who are ignorant.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if "bold-faced" was a common mistake that superseded the original, in the same way that "literal" now has a dictionary entry for its meaning as "figurative". As a theoretical example, we may see "pour over" come to be an acceptable alternative to "pore over", as the mistake is common and the meaning can be justified (I am "pouring" my attention over something). It follows in these cases that more educated people may be more likely to use the original term while the new version is more more likely to become more numerous in Google hits. It also follows that users of the original term may reasonably be unhappy with the evolution. What I don't think follows is justifiably calling the original meaning "wrong", and what I think is simply petty is calling people who use it "ignorant". Edit: When I say "bold-faced" may be a mistake, I mean that it may have mistakenly been used in place of "bald-faced" more and more - not that it never had its own separate, valid meaning.
    - mikelyons 7y ago
      Nah what I meant was that people are ignorant of the fact that "bold-faced" came first
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - slenk 7y ago
    > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. It might be because you are treating it like Twitter or facebook? One word and a quote that you don't source really isn't a good discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Causality1 7y ago
    They're both in common use. Your original comment treated bold-faced as a correction to bald-faced, which it isn't. That's why the comment is bad.
  - kibibu 7y ago
    Hi. Not to diminish your source, but according to Google's ngram viewer, which searches published works indexed by Google books, *bald-faced lie" is significantly more popular than "bold-faced lie" https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bald-faced+lie%2C+bold-faced+lie&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbald%20-%20faced%20lie%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cbold%20-%20faced%20lie%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bald-faced+lie...

egypturnash 7y ago

Bald-faced. https://mentalfloss.com/article/57985/it-bald-faced-or-bold-faced-lie https://mentalfloss.com/article/57985/it-bald-faced-or-bold-...

mikelyons 7y ago
Bold-faced. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/07/lie-detection.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/07/lie-detection.htm... Of the two, “bold-faced lie” is by far the more popular, with nearly 1.6 million hits on Google compared with only 39,000 for “bald-faced lie.” Although many people seem to believe that “barefaced lie” is the source of both the “bald” and “bold” versions, it appears that “bold-faced lie” is by far the oldest, dating back to at least the early 1600s. unfortunate dislikes from those who are ignorant.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if "bold-faced" was a common mistake that superseded the original, in the same way that "literal" now has a dictionary entry for its meaning as "figurative". As a theoretical example, we may see "pour over" come to be an acceptable alternative to "pore over", as the mistake is common and the meaning can be justified (I am "pouring" my attention over something). It follows in these cases that more educated people may be more likely to use the original term while the new version is more more likely to become more numerous in Google hits. It also follows that users of the original term may reasonably be unhappy with the evolution. What I don't think follows is justifiably calling the original meaning "wrong", and what I think is simply petty is calling people who use it "ignorant". Edit: When I say "bold-faced" may be a mistake, I mean that it may have mistakenly been used in place of "bald-faced" more and more - not that it never had its own separate, valid meaning.
  - mikelyons 7y ago
    Nah what I meant was that people are ignorant of the fact that "bold-faced" came first
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- slenk 7y ago
  > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. It might be because you are treating it like Twitter or facebook? One word and a quote that you don't source really isn't a good discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Causality1 7y ago
  They're both in common use. Your original comment treated bold-faced as a correction to bald-faced, which it isn't. That's why the comment is bad.
- kibibu 7y ago
  Hi. Not to diminish your source, but according to Google's ngram viewer, which searches published works indexed by Google books, *bald-faced lie" is significantly more popular than "bold-faced lie" https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bald-faced+lie%2C+bold-faced+lie&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbald%20-%20faced%20lie%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cbold%20-%20faced%20lie%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bald-faced+lie...