Antedating of "Pizzazz"?

[Shapiro, Fred]

Sorry that I failed to discover Doug's earlier postings.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Douglas G. Wilson [douglas at NB.NET]
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2013 10:59 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Pizzazz"?

On 6/23/2013 9:24 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Antedating of "Pizzazz"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Evidence in the OED and elsewhere strongly suggests that the word "pizzazz"=
>   originated around early 1937 and was promoted by the Harvard Lampoon and H=
> arper's Bazaar.
>
> However, I find the following early citation:
>
> 1912 Mansfield (Ohio) News 7 Dec. 10 (Newspaperarchive)  Mansfield people a=
> re manifesting a decided interest in the efforts being made to encourage a =
> spread of the Clean Language League of America into all parts of the countr=
> y, the purpose of this organization being to do away with the use of all sl=
> ang expressions in connection with conversation.  A meeting in this behalf =
> was held a few days ago in Chicago, the following being one reporter's vers=
> ion of the proceedings. ... According to the dope that was passed out today=
>    by one of the high moguls, Tommy Russell, the main doing tonight was to p=
> ick out a publicity gang which will have the job of throwing this line of b=
> ull into every state in the uion, being particularly strong on the schools =
> and colleges, and not passing up the educational hangouts for skirts.  The =
> side show of the movement will be to go after the kind of music that you he=
> ar in the all-night dumps and the public hog-rassles.  Brother Russell decl=
> ared, bo, that his crowd had already framed it up with some of the big guys=
>   in the music world to put the kibosh on this line of junk, and that it was=
>   only a question of time before they would have such pieces as "When I Get =
> You Alone Tonight" completely on the pizzazz.
--

I posted this one in 2005.

I posted another "pazazz" from 1915 in 2003.

-- Doug Wilson

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