Over the past year or two I have caught myself using the phrase ‘holy moley’ quite often, but I never really understood what it meant besides being surprised. I was just wondering if anyone out there knew what the origin or meaning of the phrase was. Thanks
This has come up before. I have, in the past, maintained that it originated as the mild oath used by Billy Batston in the Captain Marvel comic book. Others say that it wasd only popularized by that. I seem to recall reading that Capt. Marvel was the origin – I certainly don’t know of any instances earlier. But it certainly did aid in popularizing it.
And it arguably ain’t that mild. As Steranko says in his History of Comics, look up Moley or moly sometime.
It’s no more than a euphamism for “Holy Moses”, I’m betting. It’s in in line with “golly” for “God”, or “jeezum” for “Jesus”.
Well golly jeezum moley that’s a good question!
I can predate the Capt. Marvel/Billy Batson with cites from 1929/1946. The earliest Marvel citing is 1949. Capt. Marvel started in 1940, but I’d love it if someone could find a cite there before 1949. It might exist.
Could it be for the holy herb moly that odysseus used to nullify circe’s magic?
That’s what Sternako was pointing out in my post above (and long ago). If so, though, they misspelled “moly” as “moley”.
Here is a 1929 cite in a poem by Hervey Allen that uses the spelling “moly”.
You say you could, but you didn’t.
When I use Google Books N-gram viewer, It gives no instances prior to 1940 on its chart
But when you look more closely you find that it appears in the 1892 book Running it Off by Nathaniel Gould.
It doesn’t list any subsequemnt appearances.
And, despite samclem’s claims, “Holy Moly” apparently appeared with the first appearance of Captain Marvel in 1940:
You’re searching for “Holy Moley” - it is case sensitive.
You’ll get different results for “holy Moley”, “Holy moley”, and “holy moley”, etc.
The Piper Cub asked just this question the other day. Mrs Piper said “Holy Moley!” and the Cub said “What’s a Moley?” She looked at me and I just shrugged my shoulders.
Thanks, but if you got any differemnt results, you didn;t state them, either.
I just tried it and didn’t — that one early data point, then nothing until Captain Marvel. And that was his catch-phrase, used throughout. Samclem’s claim that it didn’t show up until 1949 is simply bizarre.
Well, I was posting in 2004. State of the art then isn’t today. I found a 1929 cite. I don’t think it had anything to do with the phrase as it’s come to be known. When I was posting that, the state of the art though that it only appeared in Capt. Marvel in 1949.
. Nice find. I didn’t have Google Books available back then.
That one looks like the phrase was independently available at that time. I found some more incidences from the 1930s, involving Roosevelt brain trust member Prof. Raymond Moley of Cleveland. The clearly are using “Holy Moley” as a euphemism for “Holy Moses.” I have no doubt that’s what it’s always been.
That was once the explanation for Captain Marvel’s use of the phrase.