Putative "jazzbo" in 1918 NYT? (solved)

Jesse Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM
Wed Nov 7 16:00:38 UTC 2007


On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 10:52:34AM -0500, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>
> However, I can't find this in the NYT on Proquest, and I've
> flipped through this issue and don't even see a picture under
> which it could appear (in case the caption were for some
> reason not scanned). Furthermore the spelling of "coloured"
> and perhaps even the use of "railway" is odd for an American
> source. But this does not seem to be in the _Times_ of London
> either.
>
> Would anyone have any idea where this quotation is actually
> from? I suppose it would be possible to cite this as 1919, but
> since the book's entry consists solely of this putative
> citation, this would seem a little weird.

Ben Zimmer wrote offlist to point out that this issue of the
NYT had a "picture section," which I hadn't bothered flipping
to (I stopped after the international news), and indeed this
quotation appears as a caption there, with "colored" spelled
the American way. Also, the caption is all in caps, so the
"Jazz Boes" form is Smith's assumption.

Thanks, Ben.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list