Talk:wolf ticket

This term is attested since circa 1964. One early sense used in AAVE was "nonsense; empty talk; bull", but I can only find one citation of it so far:

c. 1960s or 1970s, patient 14, quoted by Jacqueline P. Wiseman in Stations of the Lost: The Treatment of Skid Row Alcoholics (1970, 1979), page 146:
Patient inmates describe therapy and the therapists as follows:

In general, group therapy is . . .

["]Fried ice cream and wolf tickets.["]

(Wolf tickets are a Southern Negro term referring to selling tickets to a wolf hunt that is never held.)
Wikipedia and several other sources have the alternatively etymology "from woofing, meaning aimless talk, an onomatopoeic reference to the sound of dogs barking. The expression is usually used as a part of the phrase "to sell wolf tickets", meaning to bluff or threaten someone in a boastful way, or "to buy wolf tickets", meaning to call the bluff or accept the implied challenge."

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