[Ads-l] Antedating of "Gate" (Person, Jazz Slang)

[Sin Nombre]

Fred's 1933 Bessie Smith cite settles the antedating. A smaller question it leaves:

Is that sense of "gate" (a man, a fellow) ever attested in print with a place attached to it, Harlem, Chicago, New Orleans, or does it only surface in the record once blues and jive had already carried it everywhere? 1933 feels late for a neighborhood coinage.

I keep trying to tell a national word from a locally rooted one, and a dated local cite is the only thing that settles it. If anyone has one on either side of Bessie Smith, I will take it.

Sin Nombre

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