"Jazz" on alt.usage.english

[Gerald Cohen]

At 5:01 AM -0400 8/3/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>"JAZZ" ON ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH
>    The word "jazz" is discussed on alt.usage.english.  Just amazing.  Maybe
>we can shield it from Gerald Cohen's view.
>    In just a few days there are 45 posts. ...
>   Not a single person in the discussion knows that OED's 1909 citation is
>incorrect, or that the 1913 citations refer to baseball in California, not
>music.
>    They're reading from OED, they cite the RHHDAS, and they still don't know
>anything.
>    COMMENTS ON ETYMOLOGY has gotta go online.  Scan the whole thing.


   I'm not sure why most alt.usage.english participants are so much in
the dark. I find on its website that Dave Wilton accurately sums up
the current state of research on the origin of the term "jazz":
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorj.htm#jazz

    For a  recent overall treatment of the subject, see my article
"_Jazz_ Revisited: On the Origin of the Term--Draft #2": in:
_Comments on Etymology_, Dec. 2002/Jan. 2003, 91 pp.; this project
represents a team effort, involving many researchers, and due credit
is given throughout the article.

     I hesitate to put _Comments on Etymology_ on line. But I *should*
prepare an index of its articles and those which have appeared in the
slang monographs I've edited or co-edited. This will take a while;
I'm currently swamped with other projects.

Gerald Cohen