[Ads-l] Another early "jism" (1873)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

I had previously shared uses of "jarzum/jazzum" (a weird one from 1878),
"jizzum" (1882), and "jissum" (1884), along with a use of "jazzum" in 1900
that slightly postdates Barry Popik's important find.

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2023-November/164376.html

Note that these relate to "gism" and "jasm," described by Jonathan Green
here,

https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/u57gypa

Here's an 1873 use of "jism" that clearly belongs to the same family.

-- Bonnie

You can't sell books. You can't sell nothin'. I hain't no use for ye. A
hundred sech fellers as you couldn't sell a baby a tract. It's *jizm* I
want. Piety ain't no count in the subscription book business. Nor ministers
neither; only men. [In "The May Magazines," The Summit County Beacon
(Akron, Ohio), 30 April 1873, p. 2. This is a passage from Frederic B.
Perkins's serialized novel  "Scrope, or The Lost Library," which was
published in full in 1874. Asterisks indicate that "jizm" is italicized in
this text.]

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