Q-

That's a good restatement of where we're at. And, yes, we have gotten somewhat preoccupied with one slang word, "bulgine/bullgine," but it's one that has puzzled the folk community and even scholars for generations.

Lighter-

Thanks so much for your recent harvest of quotations. You seem to have documented that this slang term was well established by 1844. If politicians use the term, it has to be well-established! They certainly don't create such terms; well, they do create political insider slang but "bulgine/bullgine" is slang from the minstrel stage, and I still believe it was originally created by Black American laborers.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble