New Yorker's "Jam;" Cat Suit; Southern Tongue, Coxford Singlish Dictionary

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NEW YORKER'S "JAM"

   From THE NEW YORKER (www.newyorker.com/fact/content), "Dept. of Motor
Vehicles: The Slow Lane" by John Seabrook:

   The word "jam" was first used to denote automotive congestion by the
_Satursday Evening Post_, in 1910, in a reference to New York City.  (The
British word "blockage," a holdover from horse-and-carriage days, was too
civil-sounding to convey the awful noise and smell of automobiles densely
packed into a tight space.

   Where did Seabrook get this?  Did he even glance at the Oxford English
Dictionary?
   Does THE NEW YORKER do any fact-checking?
   I can't say I'm surprised anymore.  The whole city of Chicago gets
something wrong that can be instantly verifiable from the Library of
Congress.  Janice Dickinson sells books by falsely claiming, in her title,
that she coined "supermodel."  Now this, tomorrow something else.  But one
thing's sure--no one will listen to any of the facts, or correct anything.
   A look at the OED shows that the word "jam" was used in this sense (of
congestion) since at least the very early 1800s.
   A quick look at the Making of America database shows two interesting
stories:

MOA--Cornell
MANUFACTURER AND BUILDER, July 1874, pg. 150, "Rapid Transit for New York
City":
   ...while it is indeed, delightful to move at a rapid pace over wagons,
cars, and people, which at certain hours of the day appear in Greenwich
Street, in an inextricable jam.

MOA--Michigan-Journals
APPLETON'S JOURNAL, May 1878, pg. 407 illustration caption:
   The Jam--Rapid Transit in a Snow-storm

   No diffierent sense of the word "jam" was coined in 1910.  The SATURDAY
EVENING POST did no hem-and-haw with "jam" and "blockage."  I don't even have
to bother checking NEW YORK TIMES full text.  "Jam" pre-dates that.

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CAT SUIT

   U.S. Open tennis player and runway supermodel wannabe Serena WIlliams
described her new outfit as a "catsuit," or "cat suit."  Has this been used
before for this article of clothing?
   She's the cat's meow in it.

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SOUTHERN TONGUE:
A DICTIONARY OF SOUTHERN EXPRESSIONS
by Damon Bonds
Anchorage, AK: Nomad Publishing (nomadpublishing.net)
186 pages, paperback, $11.95
2001

   These word-list books keep coming.
   There's no bibliography.  There are no footnotes.  There are no citations
of any kind.  There are no dates of first use.  There are no regions listed
where this is spoken.  This is yet another book of words and expressions
stolen here and there.  And, a bit off topic, but this book was published in
Alaska?
   Another "dictionary," huh?  Is this person a member of the DSNA?  The ADS?
 Who is this person?  The Preface has "Houston, Texas" below the name.
   Some examples:

Pg. 51:
_Dixie_--the South     My Grandpa is comin' to visit.  He's never been to
Dixie.

Pg. 181:
_y'all_--"you all"; you (plural)     Are y'all comin' down for Thanksgiving'?

   I collect these books just as curiousity pieces, nothing more.


THE COXFORD SINGLISH DICTIONARY
Singapore: Angsana Books (www.flameoftheforest.com)
146 pages, paperback, (see Amazon.com for price)
2002

   The author here (from the Introduction) is "Supreme Cock, Editor in Chief,
TalkingCock.com, April 2002, Coxford University, Bukit Gorblok, Singapore."
   Again, there's no bibliography, no citations, and no footnotes.  There are
a very few drawings.
   This is a nice effort for a free web site (TalkingCock.com).  I liked
Coxford's ballsy title.  You don't have to buy the book at all, but I just
love apartment clutter.