Jasm/Jism/Gism

Baker, John JMB at STRADLEY.COM
Tue Oct 16 03:26:57 UTC 2007


In addition to his theory that jazz derives from Irish teas, Daniel Cassidy argues in How the Irish Invented Slang that jasm and gism derive from Irish teas ioma, which he defines as "an abundance of heat and passion; fig. semen."  Google does not present any examples of "teas ioma" that do not come from Cassidy. However, I don't know how good a source Google is for Irish.  Any thoughts on this theory?  Jasm/jism/gism currently are in the "origin unknown" category.
 
 
John Baker
 

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