Zimmer Linguistlist

[Wilson Gray]

Ben wrote;

"1933 Z. N. HURSTON in Story Aug. 63 And whut make it so cool, he got
money 'cumulated. And womens give it all to 'im.
-----

"I've already questioned whether Hurston's 'whut make it so cool' (used
in her writings from 1933 to 1943) has any continuity with the later
sense of "cool":

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509D&L=ADS-L&P=R12869

As with the 1884 cite above, I think Hurston's usage could just as
easily fall under the older 'unabashed, audacious' sense. I'd be more
convinced it fit the modern sense if there were any later examples
following Hurst's pattern, with that unusual cleft construction. The
best candidate I've found so far is unfortunately illegible in a
couple of key places[.]"


Once again, I may be missing the point, as I'm subject to do and which
has been pointed out elsewhere, but it seems to me that Ben's question
was whether, in the phrase, "whut make it so cool," used in print by
Hurston over the course of a dekkid ending in 1933, "cool" had
essentially the same meaning that "cool" has in (more) modern slang.

I suggest that it very likely did, given that the "unusual cleft
construction," _whut make it so cool [(is that) S]_, is in no way
unusual in BE, wherein it liveth and kicketh to this very day, both in
Hurston's exact words and in minor variations such as, e.g. " And whut
make it so dynamite, she got that fine behin'."

I'm so accustomed to speaking and hearing such forms that it's not
clear to me whether Ben meant to say that it's an unusual construction
in Black English or that it's an unusual construction in standard
English. And, of course, there still exists the possibility that I've
simply altogether failed to understand what Ben was driving at.

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org