"Jazz" did not have a sexual origin

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>But if anything such a connection between "jazz" and "jasm" calls
>into question the claim in the subject line, given the fact that the
>latter looks for all the world like an ablaut variant of "jism",
>which can hardly be claimed not to have a sexual origin.

That's the way it looks to us moderns, but it MAY not be so.

At any rate, whatever the ultimate etymology, "jasm" apparently didn't look
like a word for semen in the relevant milieu (California, 1913-17 or
so).  Popik and Cohen cite a news item from 1916: <<"Jaz-m to Be Defined by
Berkeley Minister.>>. "Jaz-m" is apparently equated to "pep".

I know of only three other comprehensible examples of "jasm" -- the ones
which are in DARE and HDAS. I've read the texts in which they appear, and
none has a sexual content or even a "questionable" one: one is in a
description of an apparently not-very-hardworking man by a woman, one is in
a description of a woman by a man who apparently admires her spiritedness,
the third seems to refer to a man's charisma (possibly he's a politician).
The years are 1860-1886.

In the same period, in the citations in DARE and HDAS, "jism" is given with
essentially the same sense. It does not appear as "semen" until slightly
later (1888 is the earliest probable example I see, 1899 the earliest
entirely unequivocal one).

Two possibilities, assuming that "jism" and "jasm" are essentially the same
word:

(1) The original sense was actually "semen" but this sense was seldom or
never recorded in print for a long time and was supplanted in the standard
language so completely by the metaphor "spirit"/"vigor" by (say) 1860 that
"jism"/"jasm" was comfortably used by and about women in print during the
late 19th Century. [This would be an example of an "ameliorated word".]

(2) The original sense was actually more like "vigor"/"spirit", and the
"semen" sense appeared later -- and perhaps didn't become widespread until
(say) 1930.

Each of these has points in its favor. If someone has additional citations
or other evidence, I would be interested.

-- Doug Wilson