cool cats of the '40s

[Jonathan Lighter]

Ben, these are undoubtedly earlier than anything else I've seen. I'd have surmised ca1949 in (cool) jazz circles, '54 or so for the college crowd.

  JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: cool cats of the '40s
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When did "cool cat" collocate? OED has it from 1955 (NYT, "cool Brooks
Brothers cats"), and I don't see anything earlier in HDAS. The Chicago
Defender has some interesting cites from the '40s. There are a few
pre-WWII cites from gossip columns, with "cool" apparently used in
HDAS sense 2a ("urbane; suave; sophisticated, esp. in ways attractive
to the opposite sex"):

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Chicago Defender, Apr 5, 1941, p. 8/7, Doc ID 740922572
Who is that cool looking cat that is taking Lucinda H---- around these days.
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Chicago Defender, May 23, 1942, p. 10/6, Doc ID 746488542
Perry Givens played a cool cat at the May dance Friday.
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Chicago Defender, Jun 6, 1942, p. 10/6, Doc ID 741157902
One of Gary's cool cats, Davage Minor, has just got back from New York.
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(The 1942 cites are from "Kid Harris' Gossip Column" by Fred Harris,
Jr., who called everyone "cats" and "chicks".)

After the war there appeared a band called "Abbey Brown's Cool Cats"
(also shows up in online sources as "Abbey Brown & His Cool Cats",
mostly referring to the band's appearance on recordings by Anita O'Day
from the late '40s).

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Chicago Defender, Mar 2, 1946. p. 16/8, Doc ID 741728092
[ad for Rainbow Music Shop, "Harlem's Greatest Record Store"]
Milkin' the Goat -- Abbey Brown's Cool Cats.
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Chicago Defender, May 18, 1946, p. 9/7, Doc ID 741763112
[ad for University Studio, "The World's Largest Negro Record Mail
Order Company"]
Flamin' Mamie; Serenade To A Jitterbug -- Abbey Brown's Cool Cats.
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--Ben Zimmer



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