Antedating of "Jazz" as Verb

[Wilson Gray]

Ca.1958, I worked with a white man, "Dave Beach, the old Irishman," as
he styled himself, ca.65 years old, who *always* used "jazz" as a
euphemism for "fuck." Therefore, could the headline mean, possibly,
that

C. S. Smith Almost _Fucks Up_ Game Cinched by Venice

Dave was clearly old enough to have learned this meaning of "jazz"
when it was still other than literary. It fell trippingly from his
tongue and he never alternated it with "fuck."

-Wilson

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Antedating of "Jazz" as Verb
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The recent digitization of the San Francisco Chronicle by ProQuest does not seem to provide an antedating of the word "jazz."  However, it does antedate my previous discovery of the earliest occurrence of "jazz" as a verb, in a context that is cryptic but that connects with other early West Coast baseball usages of "jazz" that have been discovered and are newly incorporated into the OED:
>
>
> jazz, v. (OED 1915)
>
> 1914 _S.F. Chronicle_ 7 May 10 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  (headline)  Venice Tigers Step Further Out in Front as Seals Lose  C. S. Smith Almost Jazzes Game Cinched by Venice.
>
>
> The body of the article describes reliever C. S. Smith almost blowing a baseball game against the Oakland Oaks.  I don't see the word "jazz" used in the body of the article, but the body is poorly OCR'd (the headline is very clear) and I will study it more carefully when I have the time.  I guess the usage of "jazz" here seems on its face to mean "blows, messes up."
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Fred R. Shapiro                                            Editor
> Associate Librarian for Collections and        YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
>  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
> Yale Law School                                           ISBN 0300107986
> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
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