I started subscribing to the
OED's "
Word of the Day"
email service. I figured that while I'm getting a
Spanish word of the day, I might as well also be getting an English one. Daily medidations for each part of my brain. Good times. Well, the word of today from the OED is one of my favourites! Interesting to me is that its earliest written use (in the sense of "worthless talk") wasn't until 1932! You KNOW that word was in use in that sense before that. Hard to prove though, seeing as how there wasn't any vernacular radio programming, nor the existence of television (let alone the widespread use of slang on it), or many other ways to record voice. Recordings that do exist are usually song, not speech. Sigh. But, here: enjoy!
jive, n. (from the OED SECOND EDITION 1989)
slang (orig. U.S.).
(dav) [Origin unknown.]
1. Talk or conversation; spec. talk that is misleading, untrue, empty, or pretentious; hence, anything false, worthless, or unpleasant; vaguely, ‘stuff’; = JAZZ n. 3a.
1928 R. FISHER Walls of Jericho 301 Jive, pursuit in love or any device thereof. Usually flattery with intent to win. 1929 T. GORDON Born to Be 236 Jive, a misleading remark. 1932 MUSE & ARLEN Way down South 50 Thus the enamoured customer completed his meal, without ever having taken his eyes off that tantalizing brown, with her suave Birmingham jive. 1935 Swing Music Autumn 55/2 Maybe you think that that is all jive. You are wrong if you do. It is the way I felt about these new records. 1946 MEZZROW & WOLFE Really Blues iii. 37, I used to hear a lot of medical jive. Ibid. 375 Jive n., confusing doubletalk, pretentious conversation, anything false or phony. Jive that makes it drip, clouds that produce rain. 1954 L. ARMSTRONG Satchmo x. 150 There was lots of just plain common shooting and cutting. But..that jive didn't faze me at all. Ibid. xii. 193, I bought a lot of cheap jive at the five and ten cents store to give to the kids. 1956 M. STEARNS Story of Jazz (1957) v. 50 The attitude of several modern jazzmen, born and bred in the South, is striking: ‘This hoodoo jive is nowhere,’ they say, ‘but man, watch out!’ 1960 in P. Oliver Blues fell this Morning vii. 197 I'm evil and mean and funny, so don't come back with that line of jive. 1972 M. J. BOSSE Incident at Naha iii. 152 Maybe some of his Christian sentiments sound corny today, but..he had cut through a lot of the jive of his own time, and he had, like, the balls to fight injustice. 1973 Black World Oct. 36/2 Everything that we do must be aimed toward the total liberation, unification and empowerment of Afrika... Anything short of that is jive.
2. Jazz, esp. a type of fast, lively jazz; ‘swing’.
1928 (title of gramophone record by Cow Cow Davenport) State Street Jive. 1937 New Yorker 17 Apr. 31/3 The music of hot bands..is referred to as swing or jive, of which, in turn, there are several kinds. 1939 San Francisco News Let. 1 Sept. 12/2 Fats Waller..is the King of Jive and gets off some fine stuff. 1946 N. & Q. 13 July 20/1 Mr. Mitchell Parish, the American song-writer,..told me that he uses jive to describe syncopated music played noisily, and (usually) fast, with great emphasis on rhythm. 1959 ‘F. NEWTON’ Jazz Scene i. 12 In Sophiatown and the rest of the South African ghettoes the ‘jive bands’ play what is patently jazz. 1960 Down Beat 9 June 15 Regarding the word jive, Wilson said, it is nothing more than an obsolete slang term for jazz.
b. Lively and uninhibited dancing to dance-music or jazz; spec. ‘jitterbugging’.
1943 Dancing Times Dec. 117/1 The rhythm of the Jive is not an entirely new one. 1957 C. MACINNES City of Spades I. iv. 24 I'll teach you..bop steps, and jive, and all. 1958 Listener 20 Nov. 848/1 Jive and tribal dancing. 1969 H. HORWOOD Newfoundland x. 69 The jive..is still the universal dance of..outport youngsters.
3. A variety of American English associated with the Harlem area of New York; slang used by American Blacks, or by jazz musicians and their followers. Also attrib., as jive talk.
1938 C. CALLOWAY Hi De Ho 16 Jive. 1. Harlemese speech or lingo. 2. To kid along, to blarney, to give a girl a line. 1943 Time 26 July 56/2 A jive-talk glossary that is strictly Dracula has been put out by Parents' Institute. 1944 D. BURLEY (title) Original handbook of Harlem jive. 1944 E. CONRAD in Ibid. 5 Jive is one more contribution of Negro America to the United States. Ibid. 6 Jive talk may have been originally a kind of ‘Pig Latin’ that the slaves talked with each other, a codewhen they were in the presence of whites. 1960 Time & Tide 24 Dec. 1599/2 Jive-talk is nothing new. It goes back at least to the thirties when for the first time a brand of jazz, swing, grew to be a cult. Jive was originally the patois of Harlem, not jazz musicians' slang; but with time the distinction was lost. 1965 Economist 4 Sept. 888/2 Some common American jive~words (nappy, funky) are left out [of the Penguin English Dictionary]. 1971 Black World June 92/2 All the rest of that jive talk about white liberals and Rhett Butler is part of another conversation, Sam. 1971 Melody Maker 13 Nov. 31/1 That is if you forget the usual jive phrases that whittle their way into his conversation. 1973 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 June 604/4 A narrative tone which frequently coincides with the fast, obscene jive-talk of his characters.
4. Marijuana, or a cigarette containing it.
1938 Call-Bulletin (San Francisco) 19 Mar., The cigarettes are variously called sticks, reefers, tea gyves, Mary Anns and goofy butts. 1952 N.Y. Times 29 Apr. 25 So Diane smoked jive, pod, and tea. 1955 U.S. Senate Hearings (1956) VIII. 4168 ‘Sticks’, ‘reefers’, ‘jive sticks’. 1963 ‘D. RUTHERFORD’ Creeping Flesh ii. 124 ‘Jive’ originally meant marijuana. 1972 Lancet 16 Sept. 565/1 She was convinced that only in the institution could she ‘make it without jive’, for she invariably used heroin whenever she was sent home.
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