American Language Supplement 2 (156 page)

7
The early history of this term is obscure. The NED Supplement shows that it had reached England by 1927. Howard C. Rice reported in the
Franco-American Review
, 1936, that it had reached France as
le sex-appeal
.

8
Used by Kipling in Mrs. Bathurst, 1904: “Tisn’t beauty,… or good talk necessarily. It’s just
It
. Some women will stay in a man’s memory if they once walked down a street.” It was spread in the United States by the press agents of the film version of Elinor Glyn’s Three Weeks,
c
. 1922. In 1927 she did a movie called
It
.

9
A committee organized by press agents awarded the title of
Oomph
Girl of America to Ann Sheridan, March 16, 1939. See America’s
Oomph
Girl, by Noel F. Busch,
Life
, July 24, 1939, p. 64. The term was apparently first used by Walter Winchell, but it was the movie publicists who broadcast it. It aroused a violent discussion when it reached England, a little later. In 1945, when an American manufacturer of footwear tried to register
Oomphies
as a trade-mark for his products, the Registrar of Trade-Marks refused to grant it, apparently on the antagonistic double ground that
oomph
had sexual connotations and was a common adjective, and hence not registerable. On Oct. 16, 1946, sitting in the Chancery Division of the High Court, Mr. Justice Raymond Evershed rejected both contentions and ordered the trade-mark registered. See
Newsweek
, Oct. 28, 1946, p. 44 and Supplement I, pp. 329, 362, 398 and 428.

10
But Eve Brown says in Champagne Cholly; New York, 1947 (reprinted in
Omnibook
, May, 1947, p. 155) that this was invented by Maury Paul, for many years the Cholly Knickerbocker of the Hearst papers.

1
Neologisms, by Dwight L. Bolinger,
American Speech
, Feb., 1941, p. 66.

2
Said Westbrook Pegler in his column of June 24, 1947: “The Musicians’ Union in its recent convention adopted a resolution which is significant.… The resolution would permit the expulsion of any member who used or carried on traffic in narcotics.… Because so many of the members are employed in resorts of the underworld and the twilight world of luxurious and expensive dives run by racketeers, but patronized by more or less respectable clients, they are brought very close to the narcotics trade.”

1
New York, 1944.

2
The standard piano has a compass of 7 1/4 octaves, or 88 notes.

3
Profiles: Alligator’s Idol,
New Yorker
, April 17, 1937, p. 27: “
Swing
is really just another word for
jazz
, but it has come to imply
hot jazz
, as distinguished from the
sweet jazz
developed by Paul Whiteman, with his violins, muted brasses and soft symphonic effects.” In Jazz is Where You Find It,
Esquire
, Feb., 1944, Leonard G. Feather said that the standard jazz band at that time consisted of five or six saxophones, four or five trumpets, three or four trombones, piano, guitar, double-bass and drums.

4
Boogie-woogie
is defined by the New College Standard Dictionary, 1947, as “a type of piano
blues
characterized by a rhythmic ostinato bass with free rhapsodizing in the right hand, composed of numerous short figures in varied rhythms.” The use of
blues
here is perhaps inaccurate.
Blues
means a song or instrumental piece of a generally desponding character, like that of many Negro spirituals. The
blues
laid the foundations for
jazz
, but they are not necessarily
jazz
themselves.

1
Its structure is discussed learnedly in So This is Jazz, by Henry Osborne Osgood; New York, 1926, and by the same author in The Anatomy of Jazz,
American Mercury
, April, 1926, pp. 385–95. Its history is recounted in Reflections on the History of Jazz, by S. I. Hayakawa, a lecture delivered before the Arts Club of Chicago, March 17, 1945, and later printed as a pamphlet by the author. See also Is Jazz Music?, by Winthrop Parkhurst,
American Mercury
, Oct., 1943, pp. 403–09.

2
In Among the New Words,
American Speech
, Feb., 1944, p. 61, Dwight L. Bolinger traces this term to 1938, and connects it with
cornfed
. In
Corny
, the same, Oct., 1946, Marie Sandoz says that it was in use in Western Nebraska
c
. 1890–1910.

3
It is discussed learnedly, and with approbation, in the
Étude
, the trade journal of American music-teachers, Dec., 1943, p. 757, and by Nicolas Slonimsky in Jazz, Swing and
Boogie Woogie, Christian Science Monitor
, May 20, 1944. Slonimsky says that it was launched by Meade Lewis and Albert Ammons, Negro pianists, at Carnegie Hall, New York, Dec. 23, 1938.

4
From Louis
Armstrong
, alias Satchelmouth, alias Satchmo, a famous colored trumpet-player. For his triumphs see Hot Jazz Jargon, by E. J. Nicholas and W. L. Werner,
Vanity Fair
, Nov., 1935, p. 38, and
Jazz
, by Robert Goffin; New York, 1946.

1
For more examples see Presto-Rush, by Arthur Minton,
American Speech
, April, 1940, p. 124–31; What Every Young Musician Should Know, by Meredith Willson; New York, 1938; From the Baltimore
Evening Sun
, by R. P. Harriss,
American Speech
, Oct., 1941, p. 229; The Slang of Jazz, by H. Brook Webb, the same, Oct., 1937, pp. 179–84; A Musician’s Word List, by Russel B. Nye, the same, Feb., 1937, pp. 45–48 and Musical Slang Explained, by Gene Krupa, Chicago
Sun
, Feb. 7, 1943, p. 28.

2
I take most of these from Jabber-wocky and Jive, by Nancy Pepper; New York, 1943. Miss Pepper gives some edifying examples of teen-age wit,
e.g
., “He moved to the city because he heard the country was at war,” “He took a bicycle to bed so he wouldn’t have to walk in his sleep,” and “He cut off his left side so he would be all right.” See also It’s Swing, by Holman Harvey,
Delineator
, Nov., 1936, pp. 10–11 and 48–49; Débutante’s Dictionary,
Vogue
, Nov. 15, 1937, pp. 70 and 144; On the Record, by Carleton Smith,
Esquire
, Nov., 1938, pp. 95 and 179; Jitterbugs are Poison,
Life
, Aug. 8, 1938, p. 56; Manhattan Room,
New Yorker
, Jan. 8, 1938, pp. 34–35; Swing Terms, by S. J. Perelman,
New Yorker
, Sept. 14, 1940, pp. 18–19; Subdebese,
Life
, Jan. 27, 1941, pp. 78–79; Jabber-wocky,
Time
, July 26, 1943, p. 56; Teen-Age Slang, New York
Times Magazine
, Dec. 5, 1943; Teen Talk: Slanguage, by Bonnie Gay, Baltimore
Sunday Sun
, Feb. 11, 1945, Sect. A, p. 2; Teen Talk, by Mary Jane Carl,
American Weekly
, July 21, 1946, p. 15; Dan Burley’s Original Handbook of Harlem Jive; New York, 1944, pp. 133–50 (Burley conducts a column in jive, Back Door Stuff, in the New York
Amsterdam News
, and has made many contributions to the vocabulary); The New Cab Calloway’s Hepster’s Dictionary; New York, 1938; new editions, 1939 and 1944 (said by
Variety
, June 22, 1938, to have been written by Ned Williams, a press agent); Hepcats’ Jive Dictionary, by Lou Shelly; Derby (Conn.), 1945, and Really the Blues, by Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe; New York, 1946, pp. 371–80. The last is extremely interesting and also authoritative, for Mezzrow has functioned successfully as both jazz musician and marihuana pedlar.

1
The vocabulary of the 1920s, now nearly all archaic, is to be found in Courtship Slang, by F. Walter Pollock,
American Speech
, Jan., 1927, pp. 202–03. That of the C. C. C. boys of the 1930s is in C. C. C. Speech, by Elwood W. Camp and H. C. Hartman, the same, Feb., 1937, pp. 74–75; C. C. C. Chatter, by Levette J. Davidson, the same, April, 1940, pp. 201–11; C. C. C. Slang, by James W. Danner, the same, April, 1940, pp. 212–13, and an anonymous article in
Life
, Aug., 1933, p. 9. That of youngsters confined in institutions is in Vocabulary and Argot of Delinquent Boys, by Lowell S. Selling,
American Journal of Sociology
, March, 1934, pp. 674–77; The Argot of an Orphans’ Home, by L. W. Merry-weather,
American Speech
, Aug., 1932, pp. 398–404; and The Growth and Decline of a Children’s Slang Vocabulary, by Edmund Kasser,
Journal of Genetic Psychology
, 1945, pp. 129–37. That of street-boys in New York is in Peanuts! The Pickle Dealers, by Julius G. Rothenberg,
American Speech
, Oct., 1941, pp. 187–91.

2
Zoot
-suit was especially short-lived. The garment was worn in the East mainly by Negroes and in the West by Mexicans. Its history is set forth in
Zoot
Lore,
New Yorker
, June 19, 1943. See also
American Notes & Queries
, July, 1943, p. 54;
Negro Digest
, Aug., 1945, p. 64, and What’s in a
Zoot?
, by David Wray,
True Detective
, March, 1943, p. 99.

3
Words From Names, by Jerome C. Hixson,
Words
, Nov., 1934, p. 10; Where is
Jazz
Leading America?, by Vincent Lopez,
Étude
, July, 1924.

4
Jazzbo, Washed Up
, and
Gravy
, by Walter J. Kingsley, New York
World
, Oct. 25, 1925.

5
Jazz
Jargon, by James D. Hart,
American Speech
, April, 1932, p.245.

6
Jazz
, by Peter Tamony, San Francisco
News Letter & Wasp
, March 17, 1938, and Hart, just cited. See also
Jazz
, by Robert Goffin, before cited, pp. 62–64.

1
Origin of
Jazz, Negro Digest
, April, 1947, p. 53.

2
American Tramp and Underworld Slang; before cited, p. 109.

3
Lexical Evidence From Folk Epigraphy in Western North America; Paris, 1935, p. 62.

4
p. 342.

5
p. 22.

6
America Sexualis; Chicago, 1939.

7
Where is
Jazz
Leading America?,
Étude
, Sept., 1924, p. 595.

8
Jazz
, by Tamony, before cited. Slattery, according to Tamony, borrowed it from the vocabulary of crap-shooters and used it “as a synonym for ginger and pep,” but it was soon used to designate Hickman’s music, much to his disgust.

9
I am indebted here to Mr. J. E. Keith, of Ann Arbor, Mich. He says that it was originally applied derisively to the music of a colored band from New Orleans, playing at a night-spot called Lamb’s Cafe, and that it was spread maliciously by union musicians who resented this intrusion. But the Chicago antinomians, knowing the original meaning of “one of the most commonplace of American obscenities,” flocked with high expectations to hear the music. Soon there were many imitators.

10
Variety
, Oct. 27, 1916: “Chicago has added another innovation to its list of discoveries in the so-called
jazz-bands
. The
jazz-band
is composed of three or four instruments and seldom plays regulated music. The College Inn and practically all the other high-class places of entertainment have a
jazz-band
featured.”

11
Slonimsky, before cited.

1
The obscene significance of many words commonly found in
blues
texts,
e.g., jelly-roll, short’nin-bread
and
easy rider
was noted by Guy B. Johnson in Double Meaning in the Popular Negro Blues,
Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology
, April-June, 1927, pp. 12–20.

2
West African Survivals in the Vocabulary of Gullah, a paper read at the Dec., 1938, meeting of the American Dialect Society in New York. See
Dzug, Dzog, Dzuga, Jook, Juke
, by Will McGuire,
Time
, Jan. 29, 1940, p. 8.

3
In Arnold
vs
. State, 1939, Justice Glenn Terrell, of the Florida Supreme Court, decided that
jukes
were “not retreats which moralists dared to frequent, but rather the arch incubators of vice, immorality and low impulses.” I am indebted here to Mr. J. Kenneth Ballinger, of the Tallahassee bar, and to Mr. Arthur T. Young of New York. In Dec., 1945, the grand jury of Tift county, Georgia, brought in a presentment charging that “the roadside houses generally referred to as
jouk-joints
have become a menace to society and the welfare of the people.” I am indebted for this to Mr. Lester Hargrett, of Washington.

4
Story in Harlem Slang,
American Mercury
, July, 1942, p. 84.

5
Jitterbug
, San Francisco
News Letter & Wasp
, March 3, 1939. He says that it came into currency “late in 1935.” How its meaning was misunderstood in England is told in Supplement I, p. 509.

6
“The association of marihuana with
hot jazz
,” says
Time
, July 19, 1943, p. 56, “is no accident. The drug’s power to slow the sense of time gives an improvisor the illusion that he has all the time in the world to conceive his next phrases.… Among
hot jazz
players there are few (except the confirmed lushes) who do not occasionally smoke.” “Most addicts,” adds Maurer in Marihuana Addicts and Their Lingo,
American Mercury
, Nov., 1946, p. 573, “want swing music while they are on a jag.… [Certain popular songs] reflect, in a very thinly disguised manner, the close relation of drug-aroused sexual desire to swing music.”

1
“Australian” Rhyming Argot in the American Underworld (with Sidney J. Baker),
American Speech
, Oct., 1944, pp. 183–95; Rhyming Underworld Slang,
American Mercury
, Oct., 1946, pp. 473–79.

2
A Dictionary of Rhyming Slang, listing about 500 terms, was published in London in 1941, apparently for the instruction of Americans.