_Mezzrow_(?), "marijuana cigarette"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Now I see the prob.

HDAS has _mezzroll_ (1944 - ) but not _mezzrow_. For some reason the ety.
from Mezz Mezzrow's name is omitted.

I had not heard the 1938 recording in 1997, and if I had, it's just as
possible that I'd have heard the wrong form.

JL

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: _Mezzrow_(?), "marijuana cigarette"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:30 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> > The song, Weed, recorded by Bea Foote and released in 1938, has the line,
> >
> > "All vipers love their _mezzrow_"
> [...]
> > WRT to dialect, she's r-full and pronounces "weed, need" as "wee-id,
> > nee-id." In my *extremely* limited experience - a single speaker -
> > this kind of breaking is characteristic of the BE of Virginia.
>
> Good ear, Wilson. According to Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of
> Musicians, Bea was the brother of George Jenkins, drummer for Lionel
> Hampton in the '40s, who was born in Norfolk, Va. in 1917.
>
> http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3491806197.html
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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