Clam/Crab Shack; "Jazz" on alt.usage.english

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Sun Aug 3 09:01:35 UTC 2003


CLAM/CRAB SHACK

   The Sunday NEW YORK TIMES (Connecticut section) discusses the clam shack:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/nyregion/03CONN.html?pagewanted=1
CONNECTICUT
Just a Shack to Some. Heaven to Others.
By GEORGINA GUSTIN

THE definition of a clam: any of numerous edible marine bivalve mollusks
living in sand or mud.But the definition of a clam shack, the humble culinary home
of the clam? Well, that's not as easy to distill into a few words. A clam
shack is a state of mind.Clam shacks are icons of the summertime Connecticut
landscape, and while their characteristics vary from place to place, they are all
classic New England. "If you're talking to someone from Indiana, they won't
know what a clam shack is," said David Blaney, owner of Sea Swirl, a clam shack
housed in an old Carvel ice cream building on Route 1 in Mystic. "But New
Englanders understand."
(...)
Ms. Dojny explained that clam shacks began to spring up in the 1920's when
cars brought more people onto New England's growing system of roads for weekend
drives. Also helping was the perfection of a "good, reliable" deep fryer, Ms.
Dojny said, as well as refrigeration and sliced bread. The clam shack, for all
its nostalgic associations, is actually a product of modern invention.


   There is no "clam shack" entry in the OED.  It's not in John Mariani's
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK.  Although "clam shack" appears to be
regional, it's not in DARE.  (DARE does have other "clam" entries, such as
"clambake.")


(LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)
Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Brief Description:  <A HREF="http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Author&SEQ=20030803035328&PID=14508&SA=Dojny,+Brooke.">Dojny, Brooke.</A>
The New England clam shack cookbook : favorite recipes from clam shacks,
lobster pounds, & chowder houses / Brooke Dojny ; foreword by Susan Herrmann
Loomis.
North Adams, MA : Storey Books, c2003.
xi, 211 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 23 cm.


(ANCESTRY.COM)(Note: Not many NE newspapers are here yet--ed.)
   20 July 1946, MARION STAR (Marion, Ohio), pg. 6, col. 6:
   Perry's boat house and clam bar is no more...For over half a century it
stood at the old iron bridge across Indian Creek on the winding road along the
Connecticut shore, a landmark to young and old...D. B. Perry started it as a
young man, built his house on the water's edge and raised his family there,
renting boats, selling bait and fish and dishing out clams on the half shell with
a flavor of chestnuts...He closed the clam bar in the shack with the quaint
iron stove in the center several seasons ago much to the regret of natives and
tourists...Only one son, Ernie, remained to run things and with "D. P." ailing,
it was decided last week to sell the boats and wind uo the business...Now
there isn't a boat at the landing and it seems strangely unreal...No more will
the sign that seemd to us to represent the acme of individual enterprise and
success be seen there around October 1st, "Closed for Business Until Next April."

   But perhaps the TIMES article--again, another free book ad--was influenced
by the title and missed another piece of seafood?  Consider these Google
shack numbers:

CLAM SHACK--2,430 Google hits
CRAB SHACK--26,800 Google hits
LOBSTER SHACK--1,840 Google hits
LOBSTER POUND--3,540 Google hits

   I'll shack up on the databases later.

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"JAZZ" ON ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH

   The word "jazz" is discussed on alt.usage.english.  Just amazing.  Maybe
we can shield it from Gerald Cohen's view.
   In just a few days there are 45 posts.  Near the end of the discussion,
someone asked this silly little question:

Message 38 in thread
From: <A HREF="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=author:dabv42%40aol.com+">bad24</A> (<A HREF="mailto:dabv42%40aol.com">dabv42 at aol.com</A>)
Subject: Re: jaser vs jazz:which came first?
Newsgroups: <A HREF="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=sci.lang">sci.lang</A>, <A HREF="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.usage.english">alt.usage.english</A>
Date: 2003-07-30 17:35:26 PST

hrichler at sympatico.ca (howard richler) wrote in message <A HREF="http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=feb755de.0307290600.22c5adae%40posting.google.com">news:<
feb755de.0307290600.22c5adae at posting.google.com></A>...> The French verb "jaser" means "to gossip
back and forth." Is it> possible that the word "jazz" came from the French
"jaser"  as French> was spoken in New Orleans in Creole or the Acadian (Cajun)
of the> early settlers.Also in New Orleans jazz there is a sort of>
conversation between the instruments when a phrase from one player is> repeated and
elaborated on by another player in a sort of ""gossiping> back and forth" routine.
This being said, I still suspect that the> term "jazz"( or alternate
spellings) was used in English  before the> French term "jaser" but can anybody verify
this?

The thing to do would have been to ask the early jazz musicians or the people
living in New Orleans at that time what the term "jazz" meant.(Of course,
they still might not have known).  Another source of clues would be publications
and journals of the time that might have used the word "jazz". I gather from a
post later in this thread that the oldest citation is 1917.  Is that true?
--- bad24


   Not a single person in the discussion knows that OED's 1909 citation is
incorrect, or that the 1913 citations refer to baseball in California, not
music.
   They're reading from OED, they cite the RHHDAS, and they still don't know
anything.
   COMMENTS ON ETYMOLOGY has gotta go online.  Scan the whole thing.



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