Antedating of "D.J."

[Stephen Goranson]

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2012 11:59 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Antedating of "D.J."

Great cites! This may be a little earlier. A section within Billboard
called "Vox Jox: A National Accounting of Disk Jockey Activities" has
two instances of "D.J." that appear to correspond to disc jockey in
the March 13, 1948 issue.

Cite: 1948 March 13, Billboard, Vox Jox: A National Accounting of Disk
Jockey Activities, Quote Page 20, Published by Nielsen Business Media,
Inc.

http://books.google.com/books?id=g_UDAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Midwest+D.J.%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Zimmer, incidentally, is the jock who has staged two Midwest D.J.
roundtables in recent months. Latest, in January, was attended by Paul
Roberts, WFBM; Bob Pruitt, WIRE; Paul Buchanan, WSUA; ...
[End excerpt]

http://books.google.com/books?id=g_UDAAAAMBAJ&q=%22D.J.+show%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Shreveport, LA.
Station KENT has a new D.J. show daily from 3 to 5 p.m. featuring Joe
Monroe and Steve Briar on Anything Goes.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 10:53 PM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "D.J."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Sep 03, 2012 at 02:12:44PM +0000, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>> D.J. (OED 1961)
>>
>> 1949 _Chicago Daily Tribune_ 19 June W8 (ProQuest Historical
>> Newspapers) On the typical disk jockey show where pop tunes are played
>> it is usually the personality of the d. j. that makes the show.
>
> 1948 _Billboard_ 24 Apr. 42/1 Byfield found that he $B!E (Breceived plenty of
> valuable free air plugs from the d.j.
>
> We also now have a 1946 for "deejay", also from _Billboard_.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED


Then there are the (unconfirmed) GB snippets with multiple uses of "Dee-Jay" in a short story collection from 1944 (the date, at least, checks out), Pedlar's Pack: stories [etc.] [Dublin] by Francis MacManus (1909-1965), who, at least, was involved in radio. (The words radio, record, station and gramophone also appear--whether in the same story, I know not.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=KeUvAQAAIAAJ&q=%22dee+jay%22&dq=%22dee+jay%22&source=bl&ots=9JzbJFk02a&sig=oCrOWHf1Ob8gqaGcrpWwy8tFAdc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Y9pFUIv0K4jS9ASgv4GoBg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw

http://books.google.com/books?ei=etZFUMHqLIis8ATrj4GoAg&id=KeUvAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22dee+jay%22&q=station#search_anchor

Stephen Goranson
www.duke.edu/~goranson

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