Jism, was: "Jazz" did not have a sexual origin

[James Smith]

--- "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
> ....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

I came across the word "ji" in Chapter 4 (of Book 4) -
A RUNAWAY MATCH - of Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend",
1864-1865

Is "ji" related to "jasm" and "jism"?

".... To which Gruff and Glum responded that he see
her married this morning, my Beauty, and that if it
warn't a liberty he wished her *ji* and the fairest of
fair wind and weather; further, in a general way
requesting to know what cheer? and scrambling up on
his two wooden legs to salute, hat in hand,
ship-shape, with the gallantry of a man-of-warsman and
a heart of oak."





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