Another tidbit

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

Anybody interested in word origins?

>Jazz is not a bad word now, but almost certainly is of extremely low 
>origin, referring to copulation before it was applied to music, dancing, 
>and nonsense (i.e., "all that jazz"). "If the truth were known about the 
>origin of 'Jazz' it would never be mentioned in polite society . . .The 
>vulgar word 'Jazz' was in general currency in dance halls thirty years or 
>more ago" (Clay Smith, "Etude," 9/24). According to Raven I. McDavid, Sr., 
>of Greenville, S.C., the announcement, in 1919, of the first 'Jazz band' to 
>play in Columbia, where he was then serving in the state legislature, 
>inspired feelings of terror among the local Baptists such as what might 
>have been aroused by a personal appearance of Yahweh. Until that time 
>'jazz' had never been heard in the Palmetto States except as a verb meaning 
>to copulate" (H. L.
Mencken, 'The American Language,' Raven I. McDavid, Jr., 1963).


keets

_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com