bally

In late-nineteenth-century Britain, saying “bloody” could sound impressively rude, so speakers softened it into the jaunty little substitute “bally,” first recorded in 1885. It belongs to the same family of polite verbal disguises as other euphemisms: the emotional heat remains, but the sharp edge is filed down. The path is not completely settled, because “bally” is also used as a clipping of “balaclava,” especially in modern slang for a face covering; that is probably a separate development rather than the source of the older British intensifier. Its cousin “flaming” followed a similar route from literal fire to emphatic heat, while “ballyhoo” may have absorbed old euphemistic associations with shouting and “Hell,” though its origin is uncertain. Remember it as “bloody wearing a bowler hat”: still emphatic, but dressed up to sound less offensive.