OT: not "jazz (not music)--1911?"

[Jonathan Lighter]

You'll laugh.

About thirty years ago I came across a modern paperback reprint of one of
those very same "Frank Merriwell" books with a copyright date of something
like 1915.

As I began to examine it for slang, I soon discovered "chicken out," a
quarter-century antedating!  And, OMG, something like "kooky"!  And, Great
God Almighty, "cool"!

Well, I'm not so dense that by that time I didn't catch on.  While 99% of
the text read exactly like a ca1915 publication, an evil editorial genius
had quietly gone through and updated all the slang in the teen dialogue to
1960's standards.


JL

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 11:33 AM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: OT: not "jazz (not music)--1911?"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am not sure what you meant, but I'll try to clarify what I said.
>
> I found volume 200 in the series that was originally published in 1911.
> There is no other indication of the printing date, but the general
> publisher's promo is attached in the back.
>
> I also found volume 211, which was originally published in 1912. This one
> also has publisher's promo attached in the back, but also has a
> comprehensive excerpt of the publisher's catalog, including listing of
> books
> to be published in 1929. From this I devised that the second volume (211)
> was actually printed in 1928. I would not at all be surprised if the first
> volume (200) was printed around the same time, but I have no overt
> information one way or the other. Jon pointed to radio being mentioned, so
> the ad must be 1922 or later.
>
> VS-)
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 10:54 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > At 9/6/2011 04:54 AM, victor steinbok wrote:
> > >I found another volume in the series, this one with copyright date 1912,
> > but
> > >published in 1928 (the big hint is the list of books at the end that is
> > "to
> > >be published January 1929" or later). Still, this says nothing about the
> > >date of the other book.
> >
> > The "big, clean, interesting books" became so popular in 1911 that
> > the publisher had a tremendous backlog by 1912 that it didn't expect
> > to clear up until after January 1929?
> >
> > (I write this only because I am presently tussling with 3 manuscript
> > copies of the same original (which is not extant) that either claim
> > or appear to date the original and themselves in confusing and
> > inconsistent ways.)
> >
> > Joel
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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."

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