[Ads-l] Conga, terp (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill CIV (US)]

CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

OED has 1953 for "conga line"

_Variety_ 27 Sept 1939 p 42 col 4
"The topper, of course, is the conga line for the finale, the customers participating, terping with the unit as a buildup for a dance school."

[note that this also antedates terp (to dance), which OED has at 1945]  

Conga (style of music) -- OED does not have an entry for this

_Variety_ 20 Sept 1939 p 55 col 2
"The band music is a marathon, from conga to the blues."

_Variety_ 81 Oct 1939 p 43 col 4
"What is claimed to be the top conga band has been engaged by Monte Prosser who will be the general manager."


OED has 1955 for "conga drum"

_Variety_ 21 Aug 1940 p 24 col 4
"Charles Newman is a harmonica player who has Ravel's 'Bolero' for his big number, in which he accompanies himself on a conga drum."

_Motion Picture Daily_ 8 Oct 1940 p 7 col 2
"Arnaz leads a huge Conga serpentine dance and beats the Cuban conga drum in a virtual orgy of that particular rhythm."

Terp  [from Terpsichore, muse of dance]

Terpsichorean = relating to dance, not in OED

_The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern Manual_ by "An Expert".  London:  E. A. Beckett, 1893 p. 158
"Some of the designs are brought out to their best advantage when shown in conjunction with some set scene, or set of effects, for instance the dancing skeleton indulging in his wild terpsichorean revel in the bedroom scene of the haunted castle, is most weird."

_Variety_ 9 June 1906 p 8 col 4
"A judge of the Circuit Court has been called upon to act as dancing connoisseur and decide the differences between the sinuous bending and turns used in a terpsichorean interpretation of an alleged "Prussian poet's song" and the twists of the dance known as "can-can" in the $4,000 suit of Millie De Leon, known as "The Girl in Blue," against Whalen & Martell, the burlesque managers."

_New York Clipper_ 7 July  1906, p 527 col 1
"Several years ago, when very much of a "kiddie," and doing, among other things, considerable dancing, his ambition reached out for some new idea in the terpsichorean field."

Terpsichorian = dancer


_The Moving Picture World_ 28 Oct 1916 p 554 col 2
"His impersonaton of the priest was especially fine and I for one rather liked Cleo's dancing, for it disclosed her versatility, besides she does not pose in the flesh as a professional terpsichorian."

Verb terp (= to dance, OED has 1945) (see 27 Sept 1939 _Variety_ cite above)

[_New York Clipper_ 10 May 1913 p 2 col 3
"The Three Pendleton Sisters terpsichored at Keith's Hippodrome, in Portland, Me., last week."]

_Variety_  23 Dec 1925 p 6 col 4
"Divided in the center by a lattice work, the ritzy bunch terp on one side and the "ballerinas" or Filipino "hostesses" dance on t'other with their bluejacket and soldierboy friends."

_Variety_ 27 Feb 1929 p 120 col 3
"While Victor and Columbia and Brunswick and the rest record  those fox trots and waltzes ostensibly as dance tunes, the actual percentage of disk buyers who terp to them is small."

Attributive terp (OED has 1937)

_Variety_ 21 Oct 1921 p 18 col 3
"Brown, Gardner and Trahan (the three act was formerly known as Brown, Gardner and Barnett) showed a light song, dance  and musical revue  opening the show, with closing Apache number the sole feature of the terp work."

Noun, terp = dance (OED doesn’t seem to have a cite for this sense)

_Variety_ 18 Dec 1929 p 43 col 4
"This act happens to hold enough flash and good terp to just slip by on its own."

_Variety_ 20 Oct 1931 p 62 col 2
"Miss Bowman's path now leads to the top in American terp, and there's no one now around in her way."
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

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