"Jazz Means Happy and Loose Like" (1917)

[Wilson Gray]

I pretty much agree with "Rastus" as being derived from "Erastus." But
"Erastus" is a Latinization of Greek "Erastos." This is derived from
_era-_, love (in the sexual sense). Would a slave, especially a male
one, have been given such a name? It seems unlikely, from the
contemporary impression of what that period was like. But, who really
knows, nowadays?

Back in grade school, I had as classmates (there were two grades in
each classroom) the identical twins, Richard and Raymond Cuffee, and
their sister, Jaqueline. Otherwise, I know the name only from
literature and never as a surname. I've also known black people
surnamed "Coffee," which may be derived from "Cuffee," but that's only
a WAG.

-Wilson

On Dec 3, 2007 2:38 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Jazz Means Happy and Loose Like" (1917)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Dec 3, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> >> In his 1944 _American Speech_ article "Designations for Colored
> >> Folk,"
> > H.L. Mencken writes that "in my boyhood _Cuffy_ had disappeared and
> > _Sambo_ was being supplanted by _Rastus_." He also notes the popular
> > song, "Rastus on Parade" by Kerry Mills (1895), which is also the
> > first cite given by the OED.
> >
> > A 1937 article by Newbell Niles Puckett, "Names of American Negro
> > Slaves" (reprinted in _Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel_, Alan
> > Dundes, ed.) states that "Rastus" was not to be found in any of the
> > available lists of slave names, though the author did find one example
> > among white school children in Mississippi. "Sambo" and "Cuffy" also
> > occurred in very small numbers, despite the popularity of these names
> > in stereotype-laden minstrel performances.
>
> check out the wikipedia on Rastus, which suggests that the name Rastus
> was from Erastus and was given by slave-owners to their slaves -- and
> quickly became generalized as a pejorative term used by whites for
> blacks.  (the Cream of Wheat guy is named Rastus, by the way, though i
> suspect that the company no longer uses the name.)
>
> Cuffy (or Cuffee) is another thing entirely.  this is the day-name
> Kofi (and was the name of a slave who led a revolt in Berbice in 1763;
> the anniversary of the Cuffy slave rebellion is now Republic Day in
> Guyana).  if Cuffy/Cuffee/Kofi occurred in small numbers in the list
> of slave names, this was presumably because the african name was
> replaced by something else -- though i'd like to see a study of the
> slave names more recent than 1937.
>
> arnold
>
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
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                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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