[Ads-l] Slight Antedating of "PIzzazz"

[Ben Zimmer]

An item in the March 1937 issue of Harper's Bazaar titled "This Thing
Called Pizazz" (pp. 116-7) appears to have inspired ad copy in the New York
Times and elsewhere in late February. (The 2/26/37 NYT ad from The Tailored
Woman and a 2/28/37 ad in the New York Herald Tribune from Bonwit Teller
both credit HB for "pizazz.") It's fair to assume the March issue was
circulating by the end of February, as is typical in fashion magazine
publishing. Vogue's famous "September issue," for instance, hits
newsstands in mid-August.

I see the OED2 "pizzazz" entry used the HB item for its first cite:

---
https://www.oed.com/oed2/00180470
1937 Harper's Bazaar Mar. 116/2 Pizazz, to quote the editor of the Harvard
Lampoon, is an indefinable dynamic quality, the je ne sais quoi of
function; as for instance, adding Scotch puts pizazz into a drink. Certain
clothes have it, too.‥ There's pizazz in this rust evening coat.
---

In the OED3 entry, this cite has been removed and replaced with the 2/26/37
NYT ad, which Fred first shared here in 2010:

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-September/102735.html

Given that the NYT ad uses the same heading as the Mar. '37 HB item ("This
Thing Called Pizazz"), it would make sense to credit HB as the earlier
cite, on the assumption that the actual publication date preceded the cover
date. But this is somewhat of a moot point now that Fred has located the
2/23/37 YDN cite that doesn't rely on Harper's Bazaar at all, suggesting it
was already Ivy League slang. A search of the Harvard Lampoon archive may
still trump the Yalies, however.

As we've discussed in the past, "pizzazz" had a number of earlier variants.
One of these is "pazzazza" (or "pazazza"), which appears in the databases
with various slang meanings going back to c1902. (There was a musical
recording called "The Pazzazza Promenade" in 1910.) This example from 1932
indicates that "pazzazza" could be used with the same "peppy" meaning later
associated with "pizzazz."

---
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/109405124/pazzazza/
Evening News (Harrisburg, Pa.), Oct. 26, 1932, p. 10, col. 2
"The Once Over" by H.I. Phillips [NY Sun column syndicated by Associated
Newspapers]
The presidential campaign is boring people. It lacks hot-cha. ... The
campaign has had no pace, no pep, no pazzazza.
---

Perhaps worth a bracketed cite in the OED entry.

--bgz

On Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 9:36 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> The origins of the word "pizzazz" are a bit mysterious.  The OED's first
> citation is from the New York Times, Feb. 26, 1937, and the Times
> attributed the term to the Harvard Lampoon and Harper's Bazaar.  But no one
> has found prior citations in the Lampoon or HB.
>
> A slightly earlier citation points to a different Ivy League school:
>
> 1937 _Yale Daily News_ 23 Feb. 4/3 (Yale Daily News Historical Archive)
> That the Blues were potentially better skaters cannot be doubted, but
> somehow they lacked the old pizzazz down on the Arena ice last night.
>

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