_Mezzrow_(?), "marijuana cigarette"

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS, of course, includes a 1944 cite (from NYC) that uses exactly that
spelling.

Significance? Who knows?

JL

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: _Mezzrow_(?), "marijuana cigarette"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From some websites, it appears that "meserole" is another variant
> spelling.  Any connection to Meserole Avenue in Brooklyn?
>
> LH
>
> On Feb 22, 2012, at 7:25 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > 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
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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