[Ads-l] Antedating "Zilch" (1954) and "Joe Zilch" (1922) and the original "Joe Zilch" identified
Peter Reitan
pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM
Sat Aug 28 02:04:32 UTC 2021
If anyone is interested, I have posted a draft of my piece on the origin
of "Zilch."
https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2021/08/frank-tinney-ida-may-chadwick-and.html
------ Original Message ------
From: "Peter Reitan" <pjreitan at hotmail.com>
To: "American Dialect Society" <ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu>
Sent: 8/26/2021 6:08:09 PM
Subject: Antedating "Zilch" (1954) and "Joe Zilch" (1922) and the
original "Joe Zilch" identified
>Etymonline.com has "zilch," meaning zero or nothing, from 1957.
>
>Antedated to 1954.
>Baltimore Evening Sun, July 5, 1954, page 27.
>[Excerpt] The latest okay slang word among sports in the Maryland Air
>National Guard is "zilch," which means "nothing."[End excerpt]
>
>I saw a reference from 1950 referring to the word "Zilch" (capitalized)
>as slang, but the meaning is not given. It may be a reference to the
>earlier usage of "Joe Zilch," as a placeholder name or generic person
>like John Doe, Joe Blow or John Q. Public.
>
>It is well known that "Joe Zilch" dates to at least the first issue of
>Ballyhoo Magazine in 1931.
>
>Etymonline, without giving any citation to a reference, suggests that
>the usage may date to as early as 1922, as "college or theater slang."
>They were right about 1922, but not about its being college or theater
>slang, or at least not initially.
>
>Walter Winchell wrote a regular feature called "Joe Zilch's Diary" that
>first appeared in Variety in 1926, but which may have been used earlier
>in his New York Evening Graphic column, that I have not seen. The
>first time it appears in variety, they mention that he has been writing
>the column previously, but without saying how early.
>
>Another columnist in Variety used the name "Joe Zilch" as a placeholder
>in 1925.
>
>A columnist called Nunnally Johnson used the name regularly in the
>Brooklyn Daily Eagle beginning as early as December 30, 1923.
>
>Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 30, 1923, page 5.
>[Excerpt]The prize [(the Bok Peace Prize)] is going to be awarded to
>Joseph Zilch of 456 Mermaid ave., Fond du Lac., Wis., who will tell a
>reporter for the Fond du Lac Tribune that he is a home boy; that he
>entered the contest only because some of his friends were insistent . .
>. .[End excerpt]
>
>A month later, Joseph Zilch's address is given as 42 Palmetto Street,
>BAton Rough, Louisiana. A few days later, Joseph Zilch is the manager
>of a grocery store on Pearl Street. A day later, he's a well known
>"commentator on Congressional actions" from Girard, Alabama.
>
>
>All of those uses appear to have borrowed the name from a vaudevillian
>name Frank Tinney, who is known to have used the name in an Arthur
>Hammerstein show called "Daffy Dill" in 1922. The name and detailed
>description of the bit it was used in in that show were published in
>reviews of the show. Tinney was apparently known to have regularly
>used the name previous to that show, as the name of characters he
>referred to on stage, but who never appeared on stage.
>
>Several years after "Daffy Dill," some entertainment reporters were
>apparently aware that Frank Tinney had taken the name from a man named
>Joseph Zilch, who was the husband of a woman named Ida May Chadwick,
>the "champion woman buck and wing dancer of the world." Decades later,
>when Joseph Zilch died, his obituary in his hometown newspaper wrote
>about his reputation as the man who inspired the expression, "Joe
>Zilch," and gave a description of the circumstances in which it
>happened. His family claimed it happened in the Chestnut Theater in
>Philadelphia when his wife (and perhaps he) were appearing on the same
>bill as Tinney.
>
>That claim is consistent with the historical record. In 1919, Tinney
>appeared in an Arthur Hammerstein show called, "Some Time," and Ida May
>Chadwick was in the cast. (Tinney took over the role for the touring
>company from Ed Wynn, who had played the role on Broadway.) They did a
>several week stand at the Chestnut Theater in Philadelphia. She and
>her husband lived across the river in Camden, so he may have been there
>as well. He was a car, truck and automotive parts salesman in Camden,
>reportedly opening his own business there in about 1918, after having
>worked in Philadelphia in the same line of business for about a decade.
>
>But he was also a sometime, small-time vaudevillian - there is an item
>about Joe Zilch joining the Chadwick Trio (his wife's act with her
>parents) in 1913. An item in a Camden newspaper reports about their
>7th anniversary in 1920, so the dates of their getting together align
>with their anniversary.
>
>In any case, the circumstances described in 1953 align with the actual
>circumstances in 1919. The stories suggest Tinney used the name "Joe
>Zilch" in an ad-lib, people laughed, and he kept the bit, or something
>like it, in his act.
>
>In 1922, in the show "Daffy Dill," "Joseph Zilch" is the name of a dead
>man. His widow strikes up a conversation with the coachman on the way
>home from the funeral. The coachman recognizes the name "Joseph Zilch"
>as the name of the man who stole his first love away from him. She
>recognizes the coachman as her first love - and they reunite.
>
>New York Times, August 27, 1922, section 6 (Drama, Music, Fashion),
>page 1.
>[Excerpt]But the high peak of the evening is when he comes on with
>Marion Sunshine and sings the sad romance of “The Coachman and the
>Widow.” This sweet ballad has a rather involved scenario about a widow
>who is driving away from the burial services of her husband (the late
>Joseph Zilch) when, in the coachman she recognizes an old sweetheart of
>hers.[End Excerpt]
>
>The Tampa Tribune, September 28, 1924, page 13.
>[Excerpt] TINNEY (the Coachman): “Joseph Zilch? He was my boyhood
>friend, but he stole from me the woman to who I was bequeathed to.
>Tell me, what did Joseph die from?
>THE WIDDER: “It was a wreck. In going, he left me penniless. I didn’t
>know what I was going to do until I met you just now. Silas, you loved
>me once – ”
>TINNEY: “I do love you still, Imogene Merriweather. Here, here, hear
>what I have to say. (Plucking chrysanthemum.) Take this begonia. And
>never let it be said that a coachman did not treat you – hansom.”[End
>Excerpt]
>
>
>New York Times, August 27, 1922, section 6 (Drama, Music, Fashion),
>page 1.
>[Excerpt]“Oh, give me back my husband,”
> The wretched widow cried,
>As from her carriage window
> She stuck her head outside.
>“Whoa!” yelled the coachman,
> And stopped his horses fleet,
>And with these words consoled her,
> As he lit down from his seat:
>
>REFRAIN.
>“Driving down the avenue
> In my horse and carriage,
>Sometimes to a funeral,
> Sometimes to a marriage.
>Sounds of laugher, sounds of tears
> Mix with the noise of the wheels.
>Although I am only a coachman
> I know how a broken heart feels!”[End Excerpt]
>
>
>
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