"pizazz" and "right in the pazazz"

[Gerald Cohen]

Inspired by Sam Clements' 1/1/04 message I started checking my files
for early attestations of "pizazz" (or variant spellings) and "right
in the "pazazz" (again with variant spellings). As usual, Barry Popik
had found interesting material. Note "right in the pazazas", which
does seem to refer to the rear-end.
In Sam's citation ("right in the pazazz") the term seems to refer to the face.

Gerald Cohen


At 2:26 PM -0500 1/1/04, Sam Clements wrote:
>But not the meaning you think.
>
>Using newspaperarchive.com, from the Ft. Wayne(IN) News, May 31, 1913, page
>??(it's the 12th page available for this date in the database, column 2:
>
>     <<"Isn't it a pity," we were saying, "that one has to be indoors this
>kind of weather........"
>    "Ou-o-oo!" came from the Average Young Man, and he piled a few books and
>an inkwell or so within handy reach and went on.  "The next guy that pulls
>that hoary wheeze on me gets these right in the pazazz.  I've been hearing
>that the whole day and it's about as welcome as a rainy holiday.  Where's
>your fetching up?">>
>
>Since the word was sortta new, people used it in different ways.
>
>This story was under a picture/cartoon of the A.Y.M. being bitten by "the
>love bug."(which looks like a bird).
>
>Sam Clements


>Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 03:26:41 GMT
>To: jester at panix.com
>Cc: gcohen at umr.edu
>Subject: Ink-Stained Wretches (1921); Pizazz (1937)
>From: bapopik at juno.com
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>PIZAZZ
>
>    There are "pizazz" hits in the classified ads of 22 May 1913 and
>19 May 1935, but I'm goin blind finding those.  This one hints at
>the origin.
>
>    26 February 1937, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 3 ad:
>_THIS THING CALLED PIZAZZ_
>Pizazz, to quote the Harvard Lampoon and Harpers Bazaar, is an
>indefinable dynamic quality.  Certain clothes have it.
>_TAILORED WOMAN_
>
>
>Date:         Sat, 29 Sep 2001 19:42:18 EDT
>From: Bapopik at AOL.COM
>Subject:      Ooley Cow, Keep Your Shirt On (1918); Author! Author! (1916)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>...
>GOLF:
>THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND CHUCKLES
>by Clare Briggs
>P. F. Volland & Co., Chicago
>1916
>
>    "Mulligan" is not here, either, and it's not in THE DUFFER'S
>HANDBOOK OF GOLF (1926) by Grantland Rice and Clare Briggs.  (Clare
>Briggs was a longtime cartoonist on the New York Herald Tribune.)
>"Mulligan" probably dates from the 1930s.
>    This book is not paginated:
>
>To the Scoffers, the Duffers, and the Golfers, this book is dedicated.
>
>"Right in the Pazazas."
>
<snip>