Antedating of _doo(-)wop_

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Wilson, I wasn't trying to one-up your interpretation! Far from it.
What I found interesting about the quote is Davis's reference to the
song as "a doo-wop." When the 1961 cite enters the OED (as it surely
will), the "doo-wop" entry will need to be expanded to include this
sort of count-noun usage (i.e., "a song [with such-and-such
characteristics]"). Later cites would fit into the mass-noun "genre"
usage the OED already has ("a variety of (orig. American) vocal group
music [etc.]").  A good comparison would be "rap" in the musical sense
-- the count noun (rap = 'a rap song') predates the mass noun (rap =
'rap music').

But you're quite correct that either the count-noun or mass-noun usage
could be considered an instantiation of a genre. Sorry to suggest
otherwise. (And the 1965 cite I gave is attributive anyway, so it's
neither here nor there, really.)

--Ben Zimmer


On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:50 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, I got that the reviewer was referring specifically to Blue Moon,
> by The Marcels - I was still in the Army when that was new, but
> American black music, *all* on the Decca label, hit Army towns about
> as quickly as they were released in the States. You noted the
> reference to "like those of many years ago," right? IMO, that means
> "genre" and not a given example of it.
>
> I refuse to accept your argument. Different strokes... If you choose
> to believe that you somehow are better able to understand this better
> I can, just because you choose to interpret a line from a newspaper in
> a different way, knock yourself out. I tried to make it as obvious as
> I could why I chose my interpretation. But, if you'd rather make some
> other claim, based on the fact that the reviewer is clearly referring
> to what he considers to be a current example of what he specifically
> states is an older genre, what can I tell you? "To each their own," to
> quote the annoying slogan of a Boston-area second-hand store.
>
> You also might try reading this book and others on the topic. It might
> give you a better picture of what the history of this style of music
> is.
>
> OTOH, as any fool can plainly hear, The Marcels' version of "Blue
> Moon" is hardly an example of the doo-wop that I grew up with, which
> was pretty much killed by "The Twist" and the Motown Sound. If the
> reviewer believes that it is, he's clearly several years younger than
> I am.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Antedating of _doo(-)wop_
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> HDAS:
>>>
>>> doo-wop. 1969 In OED2 ...
>>>
>>> Gribbin, Anthony J., PhD, and Matthew M. Schiff, MD. Doo-Wop. Iola, WI, c1992.
>>>
>>> Quoting the Chicago Defender. March 18, 1961: "... A real doo-wop,
>>> *like those of many years ago* [emphasis supplied], is making the
>>> scene but big in Chi-town ..."
>>
>> Very interesting. I can't seem to pull up the relevant article in the
>> Defender (I think the version of ProQuest I'm accessing only has the
>> national edition, not the local edition, for that date). But another
>> forum says this was by Chuck Davis, Jr. (who wrote the Defender's
>> "Platters" column), referring to "Blue Moon" by the Marcels. So
>> "doo-wop" here is evidently referring to a song, rather than the whole
>> genre.
>>
>> The earliest cite I've found for "doo-wop" as a genre is also from the Defender:
>>
>> ---
>> 1965 _Chicago Defender_ 13 Nov. 26A/3 People who hate rock and roll,
>> rhythm and blues, The Beatles, and doo~wop singing groups, go wild
>> about Ray Charles.
>> ---
>>
>>
>> --Ben Zimmer
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> -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
>
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