[Ads-l] Slight Antedating of "Cool" (African American / Jazz Sense)

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2025 at 8:55 AM Shapiro, Fred <
00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> cool (OED, 8.b., 1933 [August])
>
> 1933 Pittsburgh Courier 1 July 9 (ProQuest)
>
> The Northside Elks ball is rated the coolest in the city.


Fascinating find, Fred. I took a look at the article on ProQuest, and I
believe the quote is actually "The Northside Elks hall is rated the coolest
in the city" ("hall," not "ball"). This is referring to the Northside Lodge
of Elks No. 124, a venue that was used for social gatherings -- the article
mentions plans for an all-night party on July 3rd and a holiday dance on
July 4th.

So what does it mean for this venue to be "rated the coolest in the city"?
It's hard to say without any additional context. I'd note that OED3
currently distinguishes these two senses:

8a: attractively shrewd or clever; sophisticated, stylish, classy;
fashionable, up to date; sexually attractive (from 1918)
8b: (as a general term of approval) admirable, excellent (from 1933)

It's possible the Northside Elks hall is being described as stylish or
classy (8a), although the OED's examples for that sense are more about
people than places. If it's indeed an example of 8b, I'd find it more
compelling than what the OED currently has as the earliest cite for the
sense: "And whut make it so cool, he got money 'cumulated," from Zora Neale
Hurston's story "The Gilded Six-Bits." In the past, I've questioned whether
the examples of "what/whut make it so cool" in Hurston's writings should be
thought of as illustrating the modern sense of "cool" as a general term of
approbation or the older sense meaning "audacious" (OED sense 2d).

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2008-February/078756.html
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2008-September/084670.html

The Pittsburgh Courier example obviously wouldn't work with an "audacious"
reading, but I'm still unsure what kind of "coolness" they could be talking
about. Given that the article is about social events in the summertime,
maybe they're just referring to the temperature inside the lodge!

--bgz

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