Reflections on 1831 "jazz"

[Paul M. Johnson]

Sort of a which came first argument but, interesting that this
Palmerston quote could, i n ways, echo today's usage of f*cking as in:
'They were just f*cking around', 'I was just f*cking with him', 'f*cking
off'

Gerald Cohen wrote:
>
>snip

>     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