Reflections on 1831 "jazz"

[Gerald Cohen]

   My thanks to Jesse Sheidlower and Paul Johnson for pointing out
that _RHHDAS_ contains the reference for Lord Palmerston's 1831 use
of "jazzing." I had previously somehow overlooked Palmerston's quote.

    The quote appears in Jasper Godwin Ridley's _Lord Palmerston_, 1970, p.137:
    "I am writing in the Conference, Matusevic copying out a note for
our signature, old Talley[rand] jazzing and telling stories to Lieven
and Esterhazy and Wessenberg."

     From the context it is clear that no vulgarity was intended, and
indeed Jonathan Lighter (author of _RHHDAS_) sees none. Rather we
deal with a borrowing by Palmerston of French jaser in its standard
meaning: "chatter, prattle (of a child); chat away, chat on (of a
person);---also: twitter (of a bird; babble (of a brook)."  So
Talleyrand was merely chattering away with his stories to Lieven et
al.

     What is interesting here is why Palmerston alone would turn to a French
jaser to express himself. His above-given use of "jazzing" is
evidently completely isolated in nineteenth century British speech
and writing.

     As for the semantic role of "jazzing" in the above quote, I can only guess:
Palmerston was copying a note, and Talleyrand's talking in the
background might have been distracting to Palmerston. To convey the
yak-yak-yak nature of Talleyrand's talking, Palmerston became
creative, taking a French word (jaser = chatter, babble, twitter,
chat on), Anglicizing it (jazzing), and using it to describe his
colleague's distracting chatter.

     Evidently he did not intend to introduce a new item into the
English lexicon, and his one-time inspiration remained just that--a
one-time event.

---Gerald Cohen