[Ads-l] Further Antedating of "Ragged" (Of Ragtime)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is a slightly earlier instance of "ragged" with the appropriate
sense. The spelling "Vieneise" appears in the original text:

Date: October 16, 1898
Newspaper: The Boston Sunday Globe
Newspaper Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Article: Is the Popular Song Degenerating?
Article Author of Subsection: George Lowell Tracy
Quote Page 30, Column 3
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe/54004166/

[Begin excerpt]
... set to Vieneise or Parisian polkas and "two steps," and thereby
loses its character entirely, the ragged or "rag" time being the only
characteristic of the old-time shuffling ...
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 8:03 PM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> ragged, adj. (OED, adj5, Of Ragtime,1917)
>
> 1898 Evening Transcript (San Diego) 4 Nov. 4/5 (GenealogyBank)  Rag time, or rather ragged time, is a syncopated or irregular beat of the music, driving the accent from the usual note to another, as is frequently done with telling effect in the latest two-step music, and the modern "coon" song music.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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