The mistaken 1909 "jazz" attestation in OED; was: "Please don't shoot the organist; he's doing his best" (1882)

[Jonathan Lighter]

It hasn't been possible to update HDAS II, in which the error made its appearance.

  JL

Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Re: The mistaken 1909 "jazz" attestation in OED; was: "Please
don't shoot the organist; he's doing his best" (1882)
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On Sat, 23 Dec 2006, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:

> I'm away from my papers but can provide a general response about the
> 1909 "jazz" in OED. The presentation of this attestation is a flat-out
> error and has been recognized as such at OED at least by Jesse
> Scheidlower. The attestation was submitted by Peter Tamony (to whose

The nine-years-too-early error in the date of first use for "movie" in OED
and HDAS has still not been acknowledged by those dictionaries.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press
Yale Law School ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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