Jasbo, Jazzbo derived from jasper=strange guy

[Dale Coye]

In a message dated 8/7/2003 7:38:31 PM Central Standard Time,
sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes:


> From the Edwardsville(IL) Intelligencer, March 10, 1914, a comic strip,
> which has 4 panels.  The first starts out "I knew a Jasbo once who read
> about a chap getting paid $5000 damages for being struck by an auto and
> thinking it was easy money.  He tried it.  Waited until he saw an expensive
> looking car........and accidentally stepped in front and ......."
>
> The guy was trying a scam, but failed as the people in the car hit him, but
> then hauled him down the road and dumped him in a field.  He was obviously a
> foolish idiot.  I took this to to be the meaning of the word as it was used
> in this cartoon.
>

This cite for Jasbo is equal to the use of jasper in the old days meaning
"guy" or sometimes "bumpkin"  or sometimes "a slick stranger".   In non-rhotic
dialects  jasper would end in a schwa, and schwa is also spelled with final -o
in words like pillow and yellow, so Jazzbo pronounced /JAZZ bo/ could be a
spelling pronunciation of /JASS p@/  spelled Jasbo which could be a southern, or
NE, or NY or black pronunciation of jasper.
    DARE has "jasper [From the proper name] meaning 'a fellow, guy, esp. a
rustic, stranger, or one who behaves unacceptably. often derog.  First cite 1896
from Kansas 'After supper...I went over to the only shanty in the place that
looked like a store, and opened the door. There were a lot of 'Jaspers'
sitting around the stove, chewing Tobacco and swapping lies."  Later DARE says that
an informant reports that a "jasper behaves peculiarly or does something
which, for the moment, seems bizarre to the speaker."  This HAS to be Jazzbo!
     I know it from the Music Man in the song "Trouble" Harold Hill talks
about the danger to the boys in River City listening to some "out of town jasper,
hearing him tell about horse-race gambling".

Dale Coye
The College of NJ