Ayto's 20th CENTURY WORDS; Safire; Amazon.com

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THANKSGIVING

     I felt pretty sad this Thanksgiving.  Maybe it was Ric Burns.  Maybe it
was William Safire.  Maybe it was Hillary Clinton.  Hillary (who treats
terrorists better than me!) declared, "Yes, I intend to run...I've got a lot
of things to do before the official announcement.  I haven't stopped
listening."
    We'll start off with a "Thanksgiving" book review.

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TWENTIETH CENTURY WORDS:
THE STORY OF THE NEW WORDS IN ENGLISH OVER THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS
by John Ayto
626 pages hardcover, 18.99 pounds (list price)
Oxford University Press, 1999

    Jesse Sheidlower should strangle this guy!  No, murder is too good. Some
kind of torture, surely.
    John Ayto's name is not on the cover!  OXFORD is on the cover!  OED must
share in the blame!  Read the front flap:

The Oxford World Reading Programme
The Oxford Special Subject Advisors
The Oxford Bank of New Words
The British National Corpus
OWLS The Oxford Word & Language Service

     Now look at that subtitle again:  THE STORY OF THE NEW WORDS IN ENGLISH
OVER THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
     When you think about new words over the last hundred years, what do you
think of?  Think hard!  All together now!
     If you're like me, you think of the American Dialect Society, you think
of its publication AMERICAN SPEECH, and you think of a continuing feature in
that publication called "Among the New Words."
     Somewhere in the introduction, surely, Ayto's gonna mention "Among the
New Words."  He never mentions Among the New Words!  NEVER!  Not a nod!  Not
a wink!  Nothing!
      Jesse should be getting out some instrument of torture right now.  We
continue.
      On the back flap to Ayto's previous book on slang, he mentioned "lounge
lizard."  My antedate right here on ADS-L was never mentioned.  For this
book, the back flap mentions "supermodel," which he cites from 1977.  I dated
that term right here on ADS-L to Naomi Sims's VOGUE article in 1972.
       Maybe Jesse should force Ayto to watch the six-part episode of NEW
YORK.  That would be cruel enough.  We continue.
       "Jazz" is one of the most famous of 20th century words.  We'll get
right to it.

Pg. 89:  JAZZ n (1913)...(see _jazz (1909)_).
Pg. 28:  JAZZ n. (1909) a type of ragtime dance. ... 1909 C Stewart: One lady
asked me if I dance the jazz.

      What is "C. Stewart"?  A book?  A record?  Well, David Shulman
researched this citation and wrote about it fifteen years ago!  This is from
the RANDOM HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG H-O, pg. 259:  "The
citation erroneously dated '1909' in OED2 was not in fact recorded until
1919; see D. Shulman, 'The Earliest Citation of _Jazz_,' _Comments on Ety._
XVI (Dec. 1, 1986), pp. 2-6."
      David Shulman personally received notice from the OED that the 1909
citation (from the Peter Tamony files) was made in error and would be removed.
      To get all this stuff wrong, Ayto would have to:  (1) not read the OED
files, (2) not read the RHHDAS, (3) not read Comments on Etymology, (4) not
read Gerald Cohen's STUDIES IN SLANG, (5) not read AMERICAN SPEECH,and (6)
not read ADS-L.
     William Safire will probably mention this book in his upcoming "Gifts of
Gab."  I'm sure he'll say that it's a wonderful stocking-stuffer.

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WILLIAM SAFIRE

     Last week, William Safire used a 1959 citation for "Gentleman's C," and
said that whoever beat it would get a helluva "grade from me."  Over two
weeks ago, I posted here a citation that beats his by over half a century.
     I checked today (Sunday's NYT Magazine arrives on Saturday).  There was
no correction!
     What kind of a teacher issues a grade, then withholds it from the
student and his transcript forever?  I do this work for free--why not throw
me a crumb?  Hey, it's Thanksgiving!
      A CRUMB!!!!

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AMAZON.COM

     There was an opinion in the NY Daily News, Friday, 26 November 1999, pg.
59, cols. 2-3:  "City is learning to love its history" by Ric Burns (subhead:
"A newfound interest in a glorious past").
     I need a strong curse for this guy.  "May you marry Hillary Rodham
Clinton and move to Arkansas!"  There, now.  I haven't felt this good since I
cursed the New York Yankees franchise.
     I got on Amazon.com, wrote a review of Ric Burns's NEW YORK titled
"Serious Errors & Omissions," briefly mentioned that the book left out "the
Big Apple" and screwed up "Gotham," and waited the five days for my review to
appear.
    When it didn't appear, I wrote another review and also wrote to Amazon
about it.  Then, both reviews appeared together!
     There is a new feature on Amazon where you can vote (anonymously) if the
review has been helpful or harmful.
     As Thanksgiving began, 2 people liked the reviews and 59 people hated
them.  This was more votes than for the other three reviews of the book
COMBINED.  Not only was it bad, but, as far as I could tell, THIS WAS THE
WORST VOTE IN THE HISTORY OF THE NEW AMAZON.COM VOTING SYSTEM!
     Amazon.com finally took off the duplicate review, I wrote a really neat
personal page that people might actually read now, and the negative votes
seemed to have stopped.  One reviewer picked up on my "omissions" theme and
noted that NEW YORK gave scant mention of New York's universities, hospitals,
and sports.
      Still, it was Thanksgiving, and I did all this for New York City, and
not only did Ric Burns never respond, but people HATED me!
      I recently reviewed Jesse Sheidlower's word-a-day book, where I
mentioned that he left Random House for Oxford.  If there's a huge negative
vote for that review, maybe I'll jump off a building before Christmas.