copesettee is not copasetic

[Stephen Goranson]

I again checked many proposed spellings of copasetic and found none printed
before 1919. As discussed in the archive, Irving Bacheller, in his
best-seller,
Man for the Ages (1919), likely invented the word copasetic, just as he
did with
another pseudo-Latin word introduced quite similarly in the same book (the
less-noticed) coralapus.

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FWIW, here's the earliest I've seen for copesettee:

Ganster Girl, with a revised glossary of underworld slang, Jack Lait (NY:
Grosset & Dunlap, 1930) p. 213.

Copesettee (adj.) Safe, O.K., all right. (Origin: This is an old stand-by of
hotel sneak-thieves which has lately become of general use in all crookdom. In
the Palmer House, Chicago, there was a big settee, and when the house
detective
(cop) sat there, he couldn't see the stairs or elevators. Its significance,
therefore, was "The cop's on the settee.")

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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