what make it so cool (was Re: Zimmer Linguistlist)

[Wilson Gray]

Oh.

-Wilson

On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 3:40 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      what make it so cool (was Re: Zimmer Linguistlist)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Ben wrote:
> [ http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0802B&L=ADS-L&P=R2259 ]
>>>
>>> "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.
>
> Sorry to be less than clear, Wilson. I don't doubt that the
> pseudo-cleft "what make it so ADJ..."  has been common in various BE
> dialects both past and present. It's easy enough to find other
> examples, like:
>
> "And see, what make it so bad is that it seem like everybody lookin'
> at us." -- Elijah Anderson, _A Place on the Corner_ (1978)
> "And what make it so good, he say, I bought him with whitefolks'
> money." -- Alice Walker, _The Color Purple_ (1982)
>
> I also don't doubt that ZNH was documenting an actual usage and not
> just a literary one. She was a careful ethnographer, as reflected in
> _Mules and Men_, her gathering of folklore from Florida. And the
> dialogue in her short stories is no doubt based on natural BE
> conversation.
>
> My question was with the idea that ZNH's several exx of "what/whut
> make it so cool..." could be the *only* pre-WWII attestations for
> "cool" = 'admirable, excellent'. Why haven't we found it distributed
> among other likely sources from the era, using either the pseudo-cleft
> or other constructions? Where are the missing links between ZNH and
> the jazz usage attributed originally to Lester Young and his circle of
> musicians? And if ZNH was the pioneer in recording the then-new sense
> of "cool", why doesn't she mention it in the slang glossary at the end
> of her 1942 "Story in Harlem Slang" (which does include, for instance,
> "cold" as an intensifier)?
>
> It still seems a bit mysterious to me. I'd be more comfortable
> interpreting the ZNH exx as continuing the 'audacious' tradition
> (e.g., Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union Address, where he says of
> secessionist demands, "That is cool"). But perhaps I'm alone in this
> view. The new OED entry for "cool" separates 'admirable, excellent'
> into subsense 8b (see the "cool kind" thread for subsense 8a,
> "attractively shrewd or clever [etc.]"), and ZNH is given the first
> cite:
>
> ----
>  8b. Originally in African-American usage: (as a general term of
> approval) admirable, excellent. Cf. HOT adj. 12c.
>  Popularized among jazz musicians and enthusiasts in the late 1940s;
> cf. sense A. 2e , cool cat n. at Special uses 2.
> 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. 1950 Neurotica Autumn
> 46 This is a cool pad man. 1951 Newsweek 8 Oct. 28/3 If you like a guy
> or gal, they're cool. If they are real fat, real crazy, naturally
> they're real cool. [etc.]
> ----
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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