nabe (attrib.) 'neighborhood': 1922, 1938

[Michael Newman]

Actually, I paired nabe with hood in my (draft of) my New York City English book. I wasn't focusing on coinage, however, but current use.


Nabe tends to be applied to middle class areas like Brownstone Brooklyn, it seems to me. So it opposes hood in an interesting way.



Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu



On Aug 21, 2012, at 8:25 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      nabe (attrib.) 'neighborhood': 1922, 1938
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Responding to a reporter's inquiry I took a look at "nabe", which OED3
> dates to 1933 in the sense of 'neighborhood cinema' and to 1942 in the more
> general sense of 'neighborhood' (n. and attrib.). Here are earlier attrib.
> uses for the general sense from Genealogybank:
>
> 1922 _Denver Post_ 2 Dec. 10/8 (head & text) Cagers Will Attend 'Nabe' Gym
> Smoker. Practically every basketball player in the city has promised to
> attend the benefit smoker at the Neighborhood House gym, Tenth and
> Galapago, Monday night.
>
> 1938 Tommy Dorsey and Geo. D. Lottman "Love in Swingtime" (syndicated
> serial) _Times-Picayune_ (New Orleans) 9 Aug. 12/2 "Biggest flopperoo of
> year, so far," wrote Green [sc. Abel Green of Variety] "was the highly
> touted preeming of Biff Brown's band at the Ritz, nabe dancery near
> Bridgeport."
>
> 1938 Tommy Dorsey and Geo. D. Lottman "Love in Swingtime" (syndicated
> serial) _Times-Picayune_ (New Orleans) 9 Aug. 12/3 Glossary of Swing Words
> in this Chapter. ... Nabe dancery: Neighborhood ballroom.
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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