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Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

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Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#11
post #8
post #2

The story I heard when I was in music school was that the word jazz came from the days of slavery. It was intended as a coded way to let others know that there would be prayers and music that evening (e.g. Jass Tonight) but the 'S' would be flipped around. The word stood for "Jesus Amen Save our Souls".

As the article mention, everyone have their favorite theory. This one sounds particularly unbelievable though. "Jesus Amen Save our Souls" is not even a meaningful sentence. So it is likely a backronym from JASS rather than the other way around.

"reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but hypotheses may not".

It's a good story, let it live.

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#13
post #4
post #2

The story I heard when I was in music school was that the word jazz came from the days of slavery. It was intended as a coded way to let others know that there would be prayers and music that evening (e.g. Jass Tonight) but the 'S' would be flipped around. The word stood for "Jesus Amen Save our Souls".

Evan Morris, author of "The Word Detective" column that used to run in papers and alt weeklies, used to perennially comment that acronyms in English were quite rare until roughly WW1-WW2, and as such etymologies involving them ("to insure promptness", "port out starboard home", etc.) are virtually always false. More to the point, TFA lays out various evidence why this particular theory is unlikely.

"Port Out, Starboard Home" by Michael Quinion is a nice book about 'folk etymologies' that covers these and many more. He gives the real origin where it's known.

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#14
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article mention, everyone have their favorite theory. This one sounds particularly unbelievable though. "Jesus Amen Save our Souls" is not even a meaningful sentence. So it is likely a backronym from JASS rather than the other way around.

"reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but hypotheses may not". It's a good story, let it live.

It's not a good story. Most slaves weren't even allowed to read or write, and flipping 's' to 'z' is a ridiculous "code."

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#15
post #4
post #2

The story I heard when I was in music school was that the word jazz came from the days of slavery. It was intended as a coded way to let others know that there would be prayers and music that evening (e.g. Jass Tonight) but the 'S' would be flipped around. The word stood for "Jesus Amen Save our Souls".

Evan Morris, author of "The Word Detective" column that used to run in papers and alt weeklies, used to perennially comment that acronyms in English were quite rare until roughly WW1-WW2, and as such etymologies involving them ("to insure promptness", "port out starboard home", etc.) are virtually always false. More to the point, TFA lays out various evidence why this particular theory is unlikely.

Another example is "fuck" which probably doesn't stand for "for unlawful carnal knowledge.[0]"

[0]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/what-the-fuck/

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#16
Daniel Cassidy's "How The Irish Invented Slang" (CounterPunch & AK Press, 2007) has an entire chapter dedicated to the etymology of "Jazz" including reprints of articles mentioned in the OP. It includes much of what Porter writes about, but is a much deeper dive. It's well researched and worth the read, but with a grain of salt.

Where Porter's parenthetical (I think “gin-i-ker” means “full of gin.”) is a shot in the dark, Cassidy's polyglot ear for slang catches the Irish "tine caor" (pron. jin-i-kær) meaning "raging fire and lightning," delivering a livelier and more nuanced read. You'll see mention of Scoop Gleeson, but find out he's holed up 40 miles north of SF in Boyes Hot Springs, CA covering the Seals spring training. There may never be a definitive answer to the headline question, but as far as I know, this is likely as close as you'll get.

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#17
I have to take some issue with this paragraph:

>But you can also see how Max Roach was wrong when he said they applied the term “jazz” as an insult. This was advertising! “Come see this lively, exciting, JAZZ music!” It would have made no sense if the word were perceived as negative. Did the word have a sexual connotation in some circles, as he claimed? Absolutely: any word for energy eventually has sexual connotations, it seems. But that connotation came later, and in any case it probably wasn’t the thinking of the white folks who named the music. On the other hand, did the word stand in the way of many “respectable” people, white and also religious black Americans, from accepting this new kind of music? Definitely so.

I'm somewhat surprised that a jazz scholar would overlook the possibility that the tropes used to promote black music in the early 20th century could be deeply derogatory. The popularisation of jazz came very shortly after the peak of minstrelsy. Contemporary descriptions of jazz by white authors often segue rapidly from terms like "lively" and "exciting" to "primitive" or "savage". Early jazz sheet music covers were far more likely to feature a racist caricature than the image of a black artist; the marketing of early jazz records is often barely distinguishable from the marketing of minstrel troupes in previous decades. The sexual connotations of the term and the music cannot be separated from the sexual demonisation of black men at that time.

http://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/1512237

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#19

I have to take some issue with this paragraph: >But you can also see how Max Roach was wrong when he said they applied the term “jazz” as an insult. This was advertising! “Come see this lively, exciting, JAZZ music!” It would have made no sense if the word were perceived as negative. Did the word have a sexual connotation in some circles, as he claimed? Absolutely: any word for energy eventually has sexual connotatio…

> I'm somewhat surprised that a jazz scholar would overlook the possibility that the tropes used to promote black music in the early 20th century could be deeply derogatory

From the paragraph before the one you quoted, I think the author's claim there is that "jazz" wasn't (at that point) being used to refer particularly to black music, so it follows that it didn't do so derogatorily.

Re: Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)

#20
> The Oxford English Dictionary, the most reliable and complete record of the English language, traces “jasm” back to at least 1860: J. G. Holland Miss Gilbert's Career xix. 350 ‘She's just like her mother... Oh! she's just as full of jasm!’.. ‘Now tell me what “jasm” is.’..

And "-asm" is such an unusual word ending in English, it makes me wonder how "jasm" itself came about? (If I didn't know any better, seeing the word for the first time I'd never guess it was supposed to be English.)

Running a regex on the dictionary, there are only a handful of other words ending in it -- mostly "sarcasm", "orgasm", "chasm", "spasm", and various scientific terms ending in "plasm" (e.g. "nucleoplasm").

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