Hot potato
Used this in an earlier post and I'm wondering when it was first used figuratively. I almost always see it as 'political hot-potatoi'; was this the original form?
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"hot potato" seems to have a date of 1846 associated with it, but other than that being one of the two years associated with the "Irish Potato Famine," I couldn't find out anything more about it.To...
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The OED2 confirms the 1846 date, but also has 1840 for "drop something like a hot praytee." I have no idea what a "praytee" is; it's from a New Orleans source.
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prayteeI used to play an old Irish song that had "pradies" for potatoes."Good-bye Mrs. DerkinI'm sick and tired of workin'No more I'll dig the pradiesNo longer I'll be poorSure as my name is...
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Another, more modern Irish song - "Galway Bay" - confirms that potatoes = praties GALWAY BAY LYRICS If you ever go across the seas to IrelandThen maybe at the closing of your dayYou will sit and watch...
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BTW I suspect that the spelling of this word in the above lyrics could be wrong. The Anglo-Irish word 'gossoon' means youth, boy or servant-boy, from the French 'garon.'
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I can remember "praties" from West Cumbria, too.Have we done the word "spuds" here? Edit - yes, in The Big List.
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New Orleans has a large section called "the Irish Channel", I don't know how old, but it may predate the famine. There are still traces of the Irish brogue in New Orleans vernacular.
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In the Irish language prati are potatoes, plural, which sounds like prautie, in most Irish dialects, but praytie in others. I can't remember what the singular word is, but it is probably prata.Garsuin...
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