[Ads-l] antedating jake (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

"To pass this test without rendering jake unpalatable, some bootleggers
added castor oil."

"Castor oil"?! Have the writer never tasted castor oil? The mere odor of it
is enough to gag a maggot!

A Texas bluesman on this topic:

Leave Jike [read: "Jake"] Mary Alone
Lightning Hopkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1PvXfSviSA

See also:

The Jake Leg Infamy, pts.1-4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzRt_0BQPx4
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzRt_0BQPx4&t=0s>

On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 5:38 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:

> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> OED has 1926 for "jake" n2 "An alcoholic beverage made from Jamaica
> ginger."
>
> _Junction City [KS] Weekly Union_ 12 Sep 1912 p 1 col 4 [newspapers.com]
> "Another thing that the officials are going to stop is the making of a
> near-jamaica ginger.  They say that some of this "jake" is made here by
> adding a small per cent of essence of ginger to alcohol, and that this is
> in violation of the state law, as well as the United States revenue law."
>
>
>
>
> _Muskogee [OK] Times-Democrat_ 5 Sep 1919 p 9 col 3 [newspapers.com]
>
> "Among the four men tried this morning, each of whom was fined $5, J. N.
> Watson admitted that he had been drinking "jake," but said that he had got
> it at Penscacola, Okla., and had forgotten to take it out of his bag when
> he came to Muskogee."
>
> I went looking for jake cites after reading this fascinating article,
> about how blues and hillbilly singers recorded songs about jake paralysis
> during an epidemic of it.
>
>
> http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/songs-of-prohibitions-poison/
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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