RARA-AVIS: Origin of "Hard-boiled"

From: Bludis Jack ( buildsnburns@yahoo.com)
Date: 21 Aug 2002


Webster's Tenth says it originated in 1886 in the sense that we use it.

Webster's New International (1922) does not even have it in that sense.

The earliest work that I remember coming across it was Hemingway in THE SUN ALSO RISES, 1926.

The last sentence of Chapter Four reads: "It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about something in the daytime, but at night it's another thing."
(Jake Barnes after Lady Brett has left his room to go off with the Greek tycoon/count?)

I have to admit that someone else pointed this out to me. I apologize that I don't remember who it was.

Jack Bludis

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