[Ads-l] "(jump) salty"

Tue Jan 20 05:46:28 UTC 2015

Ben, the Newspapers.com database has quite a few matches for "jump
salty" that look legitimate in "The New York Age". The list of dates
below stops at 1937. I apologize for not including text. The database
does not supply extracted text. You have to generate it yourself via
OCR or retype from the image.

The New York Age
New York, New York

jump salty (some matches are actually "jumps salty")

Saturday, August 31, 1935 - Page 7
Saturday, December 12, 1936 - Page 12
Saturday, June 26, 1937 - Page 7
Saturday, October 16, 1937 - Page 7
Saturday, October 30, 1937 - Page 7
Saturday, November 20, 1937 - Page 7

jumped salty

Saturday, February 22, 1936 - Page 9
Saturday, May 9, 1936 - Page 4
Saturday, June 13, 1936 - Page 10
Saturday, March 20, 1937 - Page 7
Saturday, March 27, 1937 - Page 12
Saturday, December 11, 1937 - Page 2
Saturday, December 18, 1937 - Page 7

jumping salty

Saturday, August 21, 1937 - Page 4

Garson

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:57 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "(jump) salty"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 8:16 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> Sorry if I missed it upthread, but the OED's entry for "(jump) salty" at
>> sense 5 begins with these two cites from 1938; I love the nifty verbing
>> of "Reno" in the latter:
>>
>> 1938   Amer. Speech 13 314/1   Jump salty, implies an unexpected change
>> in a person's attitude or knowledge. The person may become suddenly
>> angry, or an unhipped person may become hipped.
>> 1938   N.Y. Amsterdam News 26 Feb. 17/2   Let's sound a high C on the
>> postoffice man whose Girl Friday is "jumpin' salty" 'cause he won't
>> Reno the wife who thinks but isn't sure.
>>
>> Although these are both under the same general entry, I'll have to take
>> the OED's word for it that this clearly AAE usage is derived from the
>> "piquant, racy" one at sense 3 that Garson mentions below.  I always
>> associated "salty language", perhaps wrongly, with usage by foul-mouthed
>> sailors (more specifically, navy men).
>
> I don't think OED's historical sense-ordering for "salty" necessarily
> implies that the AAE usage at sense 5 is directly derived from
> "piquant, racy" at sense 3. The entry's dealing with several
> intertwined senses, and it doesn't seem like there's a nice linear
> semantic progression going on here. I agree that "salty language" ties
> in with nautical "salty" (which I mentioned as a pre-existing use of
> the term in my WSJ piece).
>
> For the sake of completeness, here are all of the "jump salty" cites
> I've found in the Philadelphia Tribune from 1935-36. Only two of them
> have bylines, and they're both by sports columnist Ed Harris (the
> expression was favored on the sports pages early on). A few others
> appear in a cryptic "blind item" column called "Centreville Flash."
> (Centreville/Centerville was a predominantly black neighborhood in
> Camden, NJ.)
>
> 1935 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 18 July 11/1 Ed Harris, "Mike Jacobs Diplomat"
> Now as far as France and Italy were concerned, Hitler was jumping
> salty, spreading that jive.
> 1935 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 31 Oct 17/7 "Centreville Flash"
> Who are, were the boys of Centreville younger set, that took A.W.F.C.
> and E.C., out for a car ride, and the Chicks jump salty. Be careful
> boys.
> 1935 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 14 Nov 12/5 "The Looking Glass"
> He promises to do better this week and not jump salty again until
> Cheyney plays Bordentown. Maybe.
> 1935 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 5 Dec 6/8 "Centreville Flash"
> I would like to know how does D.S. feel now since his dearie has
> jumped salty. Can you take it, kid?
> 1936 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 9 Jan 17/2 "Centerville Flash"
> I wonder why L.T. jumped salty and put a Joe Louis on [illegible].D.?
> 1936 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 13 Feb 12/1 Ed R. Harris, "Behind the News"
> And he's getting madder and madder 'cause the chick is jumping far too
> salty for Abe and he don't want none of that stuff.
> 1936 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 2 Apr 12/8 "Satchell to Come East"
> The fans are still trying to figure whether Satchell jumped salty or
> whether the promoters tried to put something over on the public.
> 1936 _Philadelphia Tribune_ 1 Oct 14/7 "Around the Town with Tony"
> Dixon's Wonder Bar is still jumping and I don't mean salty either, for
> the entertainment under the direction of George Dorsey and Dixie
> Johnson.
>
> The earliest example in HDAS and GDoS is from Roi Ottley's "Hectic
> Harlem" column in the Feb. 8, 1936 New York Amsterdam News. Ottley
> glosses "salty" as "sarcastic, supercilious, highbrow, as 'Don't jump
> salty.'" In that same issue, there's an article that uses "salty"
> several times.
>
> 1936 _New York Amsterdam News_ 8 Feb 1/7 "Bootsie, You Should've Seen
> It! Them 'Walk Together' Cats Were Sure Salty"
> Soon after the first curtain went up, Bootsie, some of them Apollo
> cats in the balcony jumped salty and started clapping at the wrong
> places. These amateur night gigolos were quieted down when the play
> got going, however, 'cause them Georgia cats on the stage were salty
> cats that was salty.
> Strike me pink, Bootsie, them down home cats in "Walk Together
> Chillun" was a blip. They didn't believe nothing or nobody. They'd
> jump salty at the drop of a hat. And you could've knocked me over with
> a reefer, Bootsie, when these same salty cats grabbed their bandannas
> in the last act and tore out for the church as soon as the white folks
> got their dander up.
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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