One for the files? (on origin of "jazz")

[Jonathon Green]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Cohen" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: One for the files? (on origin of "jazz")



>      Btw, I don't think I've ever encountered the derivation of "jazz"
> from the jasmine perfume used by prostitutes. Did Hilton Als advance
> the etymology himself or is he merely quoting from the book he's
> reviewing?
>
>

Als gives no background, but simply tosses in his etymology. The piece is a
lengthy review of the film of _Chicago_, directed by Bob Marshall.

The full quote runs:

In [Maurine Dallas] Watkins's play [sc. 'Chicago', written 1926] Annan [a
real-life murderess]is renamed Roxie Hart. She lives in Chicago, where she
lies in the hotbed of booze, men, and hotcha. Jazz is her downfall. This
music, born out of minstrelsy and the blues in the Storyville section of New
Orleans, was first called 'Jass' music, in homage to the jasmine perfume
that prostitutes wore in the red-light district. Like so much black
underground culture, it became a fashion among whites when it moved up north
to cities like Chicago. [etc. etc.]

BTW. on the topic of false etymologies (and may I add my wholehearted
support for the proposed book), I wonder whether interested members are
aware of a book by the Rev. A Smythe Palmer, published in 1883 by Henry Holt
in NYC, and entitled 'Folk-Etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions or
Words Perverted in Form or Meaning, by False Derivation or Mistaken
Analogy.' Unfortunately the Reverend is somewhat disappointing: on the whole
the etymologies he gives seem to be the correct ones, and there is much
learned commentary and extensive citations. Perhaps the premise is that the
reader is already aware of the false etymology, and the author is simply
laying out the correct material. His definition of 'corruption' refers more
to the way the root language has been altered to render the English term,
rather than to incorrect etymologies as such. Anyway, the book exists; my
own copy is a reprint, published in 1969 by the Greenwood Press, of NYC.

Jonathon Green