[Ads-l] Slight Antedating of "PIzzazz"

Tue Sep 13 00:53:51 UTC 2022

1896 _Roanoke Daily Times_ (Apr. 17) 6: I was ging to tell you of more
wonders...the elastic snake, the pazzazalum, the gooboo, the cigar plant.

1907 _Daily News_ (San Francisco) (March 16)  2:  A whangdoodle's the same
as a pazazza. A pazazza beats four aces, but the next time you have a
pazazza, it has to lay down to four aces, because you can't play a pazazza
but once in a week."

1907 _Insurance Field_ (June 13) 26: At lunch on the pazazza, President
Marshall made an address.

1907  _Daily Repubican_  (Cherryvale, Kans.) (Aug. 15) 2: The doggone thing
was so purty and pazzazatating.

1909 _Buffalo [N.Y.] Courier_  (June 6) 36:  At last Londoners are taking a
liking to American Slang.... "Cinch," "rubberin'," "pazazz," "gabby old
guy," and the "third degree" are said to have pleased the London audiences.

1911 Richard Walton Tully _A Strenuous Life_ (N.Y.: S.  French) 51:
Mathematics....I think he's gone almost as far as pazazza quadroons....He
is all through with allah-pa-lallahs, and bi-examiners including
crackerjack razusas.

1912 _World Herald_ (Omaha, Neb.) (Aug. 12) 10: Our little [baseball
pitcher], however, was the big smoke, the main squeeze, the pazzazzas and
whatever you like to call him.

1913 _Kalamzoo Gazette_ (May 27) 5: The next guy who pulls that hoary
wheeze on me gets these [fists] right in the pazazz.

1913 _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ (Aug. 25) Helpin' her decide whedder she'd
have it cut on de pazzaz or trimmed wid dewdabs  a la katisch,

1915 _Army and Navy Register _  (March 13)  327:  The proud pazazza makes
us pause/ Within the side-show tent..../ The savage squonkus gives us pain.

1915 _Wichita Daily Times_ (Wichita Falls, Tex.) (Aug. 19)  2: George
Ade...Main Pazazz of Quick and Ready Chatter.

1915   _Oakland [Calif.] Tribune (Aug. 8) (Comic Sec.) 3: They've got a
stand-in with the pazzaz who pays Cynema's salary.

1917 San Francisco Examiner_ (Apr. 29) (Editorial Sec.) 7: PAZZAZ PICTURE
PARLOR.
;
1921 _Atlanta Constitution_ (June 10) 10: He was physically able to send
over offerings that had the correct amount of pazazza on them

1922 _Collier's Wkly._ (Sept. 23) 23:  Dignified old guys sitting out on
the big glass-covered pazazza.

1922 _The Blue and Gold 1923_ (Berkeley: U. of Calif.) 140: As High Chief
Pazazza of the conference.

1924 _McClure's Mag._ (March) 70: I think I'll write it straight, with a
little dash of hot-pazazza here and there

1932 _Richmond [Va.] Times-Dispatch (Oct. 28) 12: The campaign has no pep,
no pace, no pazzazza.

And I almost forgot:

1921 _ Brooklyn Standard-Union_  (July 3) (Sports Sec.) 3: Dempsey finally
gets the old pazzaz over, and Carpentier is listening to little birdies.

1926   _Evansville [Ind.] Press_   (March 14)(Sports)  5: Mr. Tiger Cobb is
very well known in the United States...for having what the sporting editor
calls "the old pazzazz."

JL

On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 5:15 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Chew upon these antecedents. More to come:
>
> 1904  _The [Cincinnati] Post_ (July 15) 6: And "Cy" Seymour, with a merry
> ha, ha, grinned at Wiltse in the eighth, caught one of his easy ones right
> on the pazazz, and consigned it to deep center.
>
> 1904 _The [Cincinnati] Post_ (Aug. 31) 6: A jolt that knocked fond hope
> right on the pazazz.
>
> 1908 _Morning Journal-Courier_ (Hartford, Conn.) (March 14) 5: "The
> comedians were a couple of Morgues,' the Chorus Lady tells her people in
> her description of the play that was all to the "pazazz."
>
> 1908 _The [NYC] Sun_ (May 10) (Sec. II) 8:  I was on the pazazz so bad
> that time that the eats looked as unreal as a circus poster to me.
>
> 1908 _Evening World_ (NYC) (Aug. 5) 3: Mr. Charles Williams...put the
> whole place on the scrambled pazazz.
>
> 1908 _Columbus [O.] Dispatch_ (Oct. 12) The burlesque show "has gone on
> the pazazz," as she puts it.
>
> 1912 _Erie [Pa.] Daily Times_ (May 17) 23: Say, when does old Pazazz
> appear? His name ain't on the program here.
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 4:17 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It strikes me that pizzazz went from fritz to glitz.
>>
>> I wonder what vaudevillians we're doing with these words in their
>> routines.
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 12:03 PM Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > A clothing in the Indianapolis Star of March 3, 1937, page 6, mentinos
>> > that a certain coat has “that indefinable dynamic quality which the
>> Harvard
>> > Lampoon calls ‘pizazz.’”
>> >
>> > A magician in the late-1890s had an assistant he called “Pizzazzes.”
>> St.
>> > Paul Globe, Janury 17, 1898, page 4.
>> >
>> > Also, the word “pazaza” had a long run, beginning in the early 1900s.
>> > Used in a variety of ways, sometimes a fake name of a fake thing,
>> sometimes
>> > a placeholder name for something funny, sometimes the name of an exotic
>> > location, sometimes the name of a club.  It still appeared into the
>> 1930s.
>> >
>> > “On the pazzaz” seems to have meant the same as “on the blink”, from as
>> > early as 1907.
>> >
>> > Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
>> Windows
>> >
>> > From: Ben Zimmer<mailto:bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Sent: Monday, September 12, 2022 12:34 AM
>> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Subject: Re: Slight Antedating of "PIzzazz"
>> >
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      Re: Slight Antedating of "PIzzazz"
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > 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.=E2=80=A5 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.htm=
>> > l
>> >
>> > 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
>> > o=
>> > ne
>> > > 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.
>> > >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org