[Ads-l] Interesting early use of 'jazz' far away from music

[Peter Reitan]

To clarify, the article says that "Fansler, the local businessman behind the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line recalled", at some later date, thinking back to that day in 1914.

It does not clearly indicate that he said, "jazz" trip in Florida in 1914.  That would be very surprising.

________________________________
From: George Thompson<mailto:george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
Sent: ‎10/‎30/‎2015 18:43
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Interesting early use of 'jazz' far away from music

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This fits with the sense of the first two appearances of "jazz" -- Ben
Henderson's "jazz curve" and the statement that the idea that a young
ballplayer isn't talented is "all to the jazz" -- the sense of nonsense,
foolishness, or such.  Henderson's jazz curve was ridiculous: it wobbled;
the misunderestimation of the young player is nonsense; and a jazz trip in
an airplane without purpose or destination is foolish.

All but one of the rest of the citations from 1914 (as I recall) show the
other sense: energy or enthusiasm; which is the sense that links to "jazz"
in music.

GAT

On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Geoffrey Steven Nathan <
geoffnathan at wayne.edu> wrote:

> I subscribe to an aviation trade journal (Aviation Week) which is having a
> feature on 100 years of 'airline technology'. Here's a quote from an
> article:
>
>
> On a bright New Year's Day morning in 1914, an enthusiastic crowd that had
> gathered at the yacht basin in St. Petersburg, Florida, cheered with
> delight as a fragile-looking Benoist XIV floatplane left the water and
> pointed its blunt nose in the direction of nearby Tampa. Squeezed into the
> tiny cockpit were pioneer aviator Tony Jannus and Abe Pheil, a former St.
> Petersburg mayor who had bid $400 to become the first fare-paying passenger
> on the world's first scheduled, fixed-wing airline flight. Percival
> Fansler, the local businessman behind the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line
> recalled:
>
>
> "[T]he idea popped into my head that instead of monkeying around with [the
> Benoist XIV] to give 'jazz' trips, I would start a real commercial line
> from somewhere to somewhere else. My experience in Florida led me to
> conclude that a line could be operated between St. Petersburg and Tampa."
>
>
> Here's a link to the AWST article, although it might be pay-walled:
>
> http://bit.ly/1HhjCmJ
>
> [
> http://aviationweek.com/site-files/aviationweek.com/files/uploads/2015/10/wings-intropromo.jpg
> ]<http://bit.ly/1HhjCmJ>
>
> 100 Years Of Commercial Airline Technology<http://bit.ly/1HhjCmJ>
> bit.ly
> The rise of the airliner from humble origins to pivotal economic engine.
>
>
>
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> Faculty Liaison, C&IT
> and Professor, Linguistics Program
> http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
>
> Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it
> to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998..

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