[Ads-l] Fw: "Twist" (Type of Dance) Not in OED

[Shapiro, Fred]

Thanks, Ben.  I did miss that sense of "twist" in the OED.  Earlier today I emailed Michael Proffitt with the 1958 citation, which is an antedating of the specific sense "spec. a dance of this kind popular in the early 1960s," and he acknowledged that it is an antedating.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2024 1:05 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Twist" (Type of Dance) Not in OED

I think you may have missed sense III.13.c. of "twist," defined as: "A
dance in which the body is twisted from side to side; spec. a dance of this
kind popular in the early 1960s. Also, music for such a dance." Cites go
all the way back to 1894.

On Wed, Nov 27, 2024 at 11:51 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
wrote:

> The term "twist" as the name of a dance is not in OED.
>
> The earliest citation seems to be "The Twist" as the title of a song,
> originally released in 1958.  The song was written by Hank Ballard.
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americandialect.org%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C733a4523a9d7451c46c808dd0f0e2ca4%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638683275738072853%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qP0Jh4lOBd6S36N0sdgqjF3yDdOjckNHmDfHRjj2Q%2Bs%3D&reserved=0<http://www.americandialect.org/>

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