_Mezzrow_(?), "marijuana cigarette"

[Ben Zimmer]

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

(By which I meant "Bea's brother was George Jenkins...")

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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