"spoofy" and "shimming" in Utah, 1919

[George Thompson]

I think that JL puts too much faith in the cloistered innocence of newspaper editors and of musicians who performed in cabarets.  And if the newspaper editors did spend their college years in the library, studying the prose style of Addison & Steele, then probably there would be a bank president or hardware dealer in their town who had done otherwise, and would clue them in while cancelling his subscription.

It's never going to be possible to prove my position, but until someone turns up a letter or diary or court proceeding, or a piece of published porn, for that matter, from 1905, say, using the word obscenely, then I say that the preponderance of the evidence is that "vigor" came first, and "fucking' came afterwards.

What I am really arguing against is the frequently printed assertion that "jazz" was applied to the lively dance music played by black musicians as a contemptuous slur, and was foisted upon them by dance-hall owners, record-company A&R men, and other racists.
Pending new evidence turning up, this is wrong for two reasons: because the word meant "vigorous, energetic" when it came to be attached to the music, and because it was first applied to the lively dance music played by white orchestras -- Art Hickman & George Gould in SanFrancisco, Bert Kelly and the ODJB, in Chicago.  The lively dance music played by black orchestras -- James Reese Europe and others from the Clef Club in New York, the Creole Band, from New Orleans by way of California, and bands in Kansas City -- was called by them something else, mostly "ragtime", I believe.

Not that I expect that this assertion will no longer be made.  The world little notes, nor does it long remember, what gets posted here.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.  Working on a new edition, though.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Date: Sunday, March 6, 2011 8:10 pm
Subject: Re: "spoofy" and "shimming" in Utah, 1919
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> If, as has been alleged, "jazz" was sex slang before it was zest and music
> slang, that fact may well have escaped the notice of editors in 1912 and
> later.
>
> Such a word would *never* have appeared in public print in that
> era. So knowledge of it could only have come from conversation.  If
> the word
> was relatively new - say ten or twenty years old for the sake of
> argument -
> and largely restricted to the red-light district of just one or two big
> cities - it is perfectly possible that the few early journalists
> quoted (and
> even the Original Dixieland Jazz Band) knew nothing about it.
>
> Once it became associated publicly with energy and music, there would
> be no
> reason not to print it.
>
> Because of the social and media taboos of the period, the question will
> probably remain moot.
>
> I agree that the weight of the evidence now is that the sexual
> meaning is secondary, but the pre-existence of "jasm" in a sexual as
> well as
> a non-sexual sense, plus the relatively early assertion of a sexual meaning
> (i.e., not many decades later as is the case of many false etymological
> claims) leaves its primacy as a real possibility, IMO.
>
> JL
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 7:56 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "spoofy" and "shimming" in Utah, 1919
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 1:28 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>
> > wrote:
> > > [I]f a newspaper editor knew that in his region "jazz" was known
> as an
> > obscenity, when "jazz" became a national musical fad, he would have
> shown
> > some embarrassment in printing the word, or would have refused to
> print it
> > at all. Â Here we have the student paper in Salt Lake City printing
> "jass
> > orchestra" and "jazzing", with no qualms, to add to a number of other
> > papers, north & south, east & west, that printed the word before 1920.
> >
> > Your logic is impeccable. However, it raises - or should that be
> > "begs"? (for those with no sense of humor, the question is meant to
> be
> > interpreted as facetious and not as a genuine request for guidance)
> -
> > the question: how and when did _jass_ / _jazz_ come to take on, for
> a
> > brief period, the relevant meaning?
> >
> > OTOH, one might argue that, given that Mormons are not known to get
> > down, even today, perhaps the editor was simply unhip.
> >
> > --
> > -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
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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