[Ads-l] cosplay; meet-cute; my tiny violin

[Ben Zimmer]

OED3 has "cosplay" from 1993 on Usenet:

1993   _Animedia-February 1993_ in rec.arts.anime (Usenet newsgroup) 14
May
Also the popularity can be seen in doujinshi and cosplay (costume play) and
the popularity is not just junior high girls.

In the etymological note, Japanese _kosupure_ is dated to 1982.

On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 12:37 AM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay>) says that the terms コスプレ
> (kosupure) コスチュームプレイ (kosuchuumu purei) were coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi
> in 1984.
>
> davemerrill (https://www.oldschoolotaku.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1063 <
> https://www.oldschoolotaku.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1063>) says that
> kospure is featured in the 2004 “Otaku Unite!” (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku_Unite!), and I quickly found the word
> in the movie at 35:18 in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CM8eal6rEI <
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CM8eal6rEI>).
>
> I haven’t attempted to antedate this on Usenet or anywhere else. Since the
> word is used in “Otaku Unite!”, it was surely in use before that on
> bulletin boards.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
>
> > On 8 Feb 2019, at 07:03, Galen Buttitta <
> satorarepotenetoperarotas3 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Cosplay: Costuming oneself as a character from some media entity.
> >
> > Meet Cute: Accidental/serendipitous introduction or meeting of two
> people leading to a romantic or emotional connection.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >> On Feb 8, 2019, at 09:35, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> I
> >> Colin Stokes, in New Yorker (Feb. 11, 2019), p. 27:
> >> "When you look out the window, you see a lot of people doing excellent
> >> 'Walking Dead' cosplay."
> >>
> >> Huh?
> >>
> >> II
> >> E. Black, in Ibid., p. 35 [cartoon]: [Panel shows boy & girl grave
> robbers
> >> with shovels; both think, "Our shovels touched..." Caption is] "Grave
> >> Robber Meet-Cute."
> >>
> >> Huh?
> >>
> >> III
> >> Decades ago, perhaps in the late '50s, people might react
> unsympathetically
> >> to someone else's recital of misfortune by "playing" what today might be
> >> called "air violin," raising the left arm as if holding a violin and
> >> pretending to bow it with the right hand. (The stereotypical
> tear-jerking
> >> tune was elsewhen said to be "Hearts and Flowers," by Theodore
> Moses-Tobani
> >> [1893].)
> >>
> >> Though it once seems to have been well known,  I haven't seen this
> gesture
> >> in decades. Once or twice in very recent years, however, I've seen a
> >> variation in which the thumb and forefinger of the left hand are held
> >> slightly apart while those of the right hand pretend to bow with a tiny
> >> bow. The following exchange occurred on CNN this morning:
> >>
> >> JOHN BERMAN: Why can't we [Boston fans] ever get a win?
> >>
> >> ERICA HILL: Awwwwwwww! Can you hear my tiny violin here? [Gestures.]
> >>
> >> When did the violin get tiny?  (ISTR "the world's smallest playable
> violin"
> >> from a source like Ripley's Believe It or Not!! at some point long ago.
> It
> >> *was* tiny!)
> >>

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