"jazz"--the non-existent 1909 attestation

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2001 at 11:01:40AM -0600, Gerald Cohen wrote:

>       Shulman  soon shared his new information with OED editor Robert
> Burchfield and then commented in the conclusion of his article: "In
> the meantime, Robert W. Burchfield advises me that there will be no
> addenda or errata for OED Sup. 2, but the correction will be made in
> later reprints, eliminating 1909 and leaving the 1913 citation as the
> earliest for _jazz_...."

I just want to mention that the OED is well aware of the spurious
nature of the 1909 quotation, but, pace Burchfield, there are no
reprint corrections made to the text of OED. If people get in
touch, we would tell them that the 1909's bogus, but we can't
change what's there until we re-edit it.

Jesse Sheidlower
Oxford English Dictionary