Right, so after a couple e-mailed comments from readers of the site, I got it through my rather thickset head that I should look into there possibly being a problem with my comments section – as I never get any.
I’m happy to report that it’s fixed and you are all cordially invited to leave all thoughts, advice, corrections, complaints, recipies, etc. in the comments section of each entry.
And so this entry has at least something interesting in it:
The Origin of the Term ‘Peanut Gallery’
Peanut Gallery is American slang dating to 1888 referring to the balcony section of a theater–presumably from hoi polloi eating peanuts in the cheap seats. The term was popularized in the 1950s by the television show Howdy Doody, in which the host Buffalo Bob would call the child audience the peanut gallery. In doing so, Buffalo Bob was combining two different slang traditions (peanut gallery as well as using ‘peanuts’ to refer to small people, aka kids).
