Talk:bally

Bally balloon

It's also an adjective, burst like a bally balloon. --Vladisdead 11:31, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Other slang senses

On Citations:bally there are citations of at least two different hard to identify slang senses. The Partridge dictionary of slang says that, in addition to meaning what our entry currently says, it can also mean "angry" (in the UK, if someone "goes bally"), or mean the same thing as "ballyhoo" (in the US, as in "do the bally"), but neither of those explains the mysterious citations. - -sche (discuss) 02:00, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@-sche What does “ballied about” mean? This is some US sense, and similar to what you describe: DDG Twitter 2 on Google Books with one from 1851 (replaced “twitter” with ”example” because a stupid spam filter blocks the URL) – likely more for other inflected forms (often hits are for personal name Bally + “about” or things like “verbally about” across line break). (In the UK/MLE, we have “ballied up” and rarer “ballied out” meaning “balaclava-covered”.) Fay Freak (talk) 14:15, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

My gut sense, which is consistent with the book saying "several names were ballied about" and the tweets about politics and beach balls being ballied about, is that it means the same thing as "batted about/around", in the sense discussed in the Tea Room recently, which we currently have as "to hit as if [a ball] with a bat", i.e. informally discuss/debate and "bounce around" in one's head or between multiple speakers. It could easily derive from "ball", but I wouldn't add such an etymology with a reference. - -sche (discuss) 22:51, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

In trying to find more examples of that verb sense, I found a different one, which the book goes on to connect with 'ballyhoo':

• 2004, Gene Lees, You Can't Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat, U of Nebraska Press (→ISBN), page 122:

  "You'd have to blow from sunup to sundown, and take a break, come back and bally four or five times, then do a show, and bally some more and do a show—"

  "Bally?"

  "Yeah. That's what the barker did. Step right up, ladies and gentleman, there's a show going on... Lure the people in."

- -sche (discuss) 22:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

In AmE, I have heard "bally" as a dialectical variation on "bandy", hence "bally about", but, unfortunately, I cannot find sufficiently reliable sources to back me up on that. 166.181.85.234 16:24, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I have at least added bally about as a phrasal verb, since I can find sufficient cites to pass an RfV. 166.181.85.234 17:57, 28 May 2024 (UTC)