If you hear someone use the word jumbo for “bologna,” it’s a good bet they’re from Pittsburgh or somewhere nearby in southwestern Pennsylvania. A regional company, Isaly’s, sold a brand of lunchmeat with that name. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Jumbo Bologna”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Nina from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Nina.
What’s up?
Hi, how you doing?
Oh, we’re good, thanks.
I have a question, and as you know, Pittsburgh has its own language here.
When I was a kid, my mother would give me a little bit of money and send me up the street to the little corner store and say, you know, get a half pound of jumbo.
And I was usually there with a bunch of other kids who were also getting half pounds of jumbo.
You know, I just assumed that this stuff that I was buying, that was the name of it.
And then when I got a little bit older and I talked to some other people that weren’t from around here, they said, well, you know, that’s baloney.
And then I was in denial.
I kept thinking, well, no, it can’t be.
It can’t be the same thing.
Maybe it’s a certain kind of baloney, whatever.
But I was really curious if you had any information on how did it get from bologna to jumbo, and is this just something that happens in Pittsburgh?
Is this just one of our slangs, or do other people call it that for some reason?
I can tell you it sure didn’t happen in Kentucky when you said half a pan of jumbo.
I’m thinking elephant meat.
That sounds awful.
I know.
I thought of that, too.
Ew.
It’s a well-known Pittsburghese lexical item, a well-known Pittsburghese word.
They’re used in southwest Pennsylvania, and it comes from a brand name.
There was a brand name of baloney, balona, balagna, made by a company called Isaly’s, I-S-A-L-Y.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so it’s just kind of like a way that Kleenex became generic or Xerox became generic.
At least for that part of the country, Jumbo became generic for bologna.
Oh, so it was actually what that brand called that.
Yeah, that’s right.
It was the brand name and then became generic.
Oh, my goodness.
I mean, talk about market domination.
They must have just owned the whole bologna distribution center there.
Just pushed out all the other competitors.
Bologna owner.
Well, so no other place.
I mean, it’s just here that calls it that.
That’s right.
That’s exactly right.
Wow.
Huh.
And it didn’t make it to the West Coast?
Well, that’s cool to know.
Yeah.
We have at least in print uses of it going back to the 1970s,
But I have no doubt that jumbo, meaning bologna,
In Pennsylvania is much older than that, probably decades older.
Well, I was growing up in the 60s and we used it.
So at least back that far.
But, yeah, it’s, you know.
Print always lags behind spoken language.
Yeah.
Well, Nina, thank you so much for your call.
Thank you.
That was very, now I have a mystery solved in my life here.
Oh, bring us more.
Thank you.
Bring us whatever you have, all right?
Take care now.
Great, guys.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Good.
The Pittsburghese, not only do they have the unusual language, they’re so proud of it.
And some really great books have been written about it.
Yeah.
Barbara Johnstone has written several.
Yeah.
Gumband is one of those.
Gumband.
For rubber band.
Lots of those.
Give us a call, 877-929-9673.
When I was growing up in McKeesport, PA, we used to go to Isaly’s after school for ice cream, and my mom would send me there for a pound of chipped ham. But, Grant, it’s pronounced Eyez-leez, not Iss-a-leez!