Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?

Subject: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 May 03 - 05:36 PM

Let's face it, this is one heck of a strange word. It is often used by businessmen who want to sound brisk, competent, and on top of the situation. Guys named Frank like sprinkling their talk with words and phrases like "copacetic" and "dropping the ball". They're idiots!

So, "copacetic"... Is it a real word? Or is it some kind of bastardization of language?

Let's get to the bottom of this.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Nerd
Date: 08 May 03 - 05:51 PM

The story I've heard is that it was a Hebrew phrase, kol b'tzedek, "all with justice," or "all is well," overheard by African-Americans in NY, and adopted as "Copacetic." However, the etymology is in dispute, with some claiming a Chinese origin. The OED lists it as "Origin Unknown."

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Nerd
Date: 08 May 03 - 05:53 PM

Oh and as to whether it's a real word...it's listed in the whole OED family, but as an American Colloquial word, so it's in the same category as "Okay" and "Roger." I'd say those are "real words" but that sort of judgment is really up to the speaker and the hearer...

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 08 May 03 - 05:54 PM

copacetic- U. S. slang, origin unknown, excellent, going just right.
1919, Bacheller, in the novel, Man for Ages: "I'd call him, as ye say, real copasetic. ...It's last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning."
Did Bacheller invent the word? Or had he heard it somewhere? Where the bottom is, I couldn't locate.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 May 03 - 05:57 PM

Just another way to say trickety boo!**bg**

I'd always thought it was Italian in origin. This seems to at least posit that, too:

We know very little about the origin of the word copacetic, meaning "excellent, first-rate." Is its origin to be found in Italian, in the speech of southern Black people, in the Creole French dialect of Louisiana, or in Hebrew? John O'Hara, who used the word in Appointment in Samarra, later wrote that copacetic was "a Harlem and gangster corruption of an Italian word." O'Hara went on to say, "I don't know how to spell the Italian, but it's something like copacetti."


His uncertainty about how to spell the Italian is paralleled by uncertainty about how to spell copacetic itself. Copacetic has been recorded with the spellings copasetic, copasetty, copesetic, copisettic, and kopasettee. The spelling is now more or less fixed, however, as copacetic or copasetic, even though the origin of the word has not been determined.


The Harlem connection mentioned by O'Hara would seem more likely than the Italian, since copacetic was used by Black jazz musicians and is said to have been Southern slang in the late 19th century. If copacetic is Creole French in origin, it would also Southern homeland. According to this explanation, copacetic came from the Creole French word coupersètique, which meant "able to be coped with," "able to cope with anything and everything," "in good form," and also "having a healthy appetite or passion for life or love." Those who support the Hebrew or Yiddish origin copacetic do not necessarily deny the Southern connections of the word. One explanation has it that storekeepers used the Hebrew phrase 'kol bes seddeq', "all with justice," when asked if things were O.K. Black children who were in the store as customers or employees heard this phrase as copacetic.


No explanation of the origin of copacetic, including the ones discussed here, has won the approval of scholars, as is clearly shown by the etymology of copacetic in the first volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, published in 1985: "Etym unknown."

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 May 03 - 06:01 PM

Also this, same basic crappola as above.

So what's your problem with a bastard language Scapeez? It's a fockin' bastard country ya' broke-dick mamalucca...Capeesh?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 08 May 03 - 06:07 PM

So far, the only point of reference is the usage by Bacheller in 1919. I forgot to cite the reference- OED, 1987 supplement.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 May 03 - 06:11 PM

My quote referenced John O'Hara, Q.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 08 May 03 - 06:21 PM

Very interesting. I always thought that copacetic was 60s hippie talk.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Tweed
Date: 08 May 03 - 06:55 PM

I'd never heard it used until about '68 or so when the guys from Viet Nam who came back sprung it on us. Seemed to be widespread in the military back then and mebbe now.

The new recruits use these days are encouraged to use "jacked up" in place of "f*cked up"...as in
"That dude was all jacked up". I heard my son and his buddies using it when we went up for his Boot graduation. They told me it was because there were more women boots these days and the drills told them to make it a habit to make the substitution and it would make things more copacetic.

Yerz,
Tweed

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: artbrooks
Date: 08 May 03 - 07:17 PM

For what its worth, any Hebrew association is just as likely to be with "kol b'seder"...kol=all, b'=in, seder=order.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 May 03 - 07:30 PM

Yeah, Spaw? Lookie here, ya busted-up, dip-faced, concomitantly wasted cookie-pusher, if you would just get yer ugly visage removed from your personal version of the chunnel for a moment or two and contemplate the possibilities of a renewed foray into higher education (like, taking 5th Grade over again and passing this time...), you would no longer feel the need to cast aspersions on my intimate geography!

Close your eyes and picture this: I am extending my right thumb back towards my face. I am placing the end of said thumb in my right nostril and stretching out the fingers on the same hand. I am now wiggling those fingers and making a long drawn-out raspberry sound in the general direction of Ohio, whilst sticking out my tonge at you...

P-P-P-PP-P-F-F-F-F-L-L-L-LL-A-A--A-A-PHT!!!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Tweed
Date: 08 May 03 - 07:33 PM

Nerd's probably got it right in his post. I expect that it got to Nam via young Afro Americans where it was picked up by middle Amurka white kids and then sent back over here. Something like the "dap" or ritual handshake. This phenomenon seemed to arrive via the troops stationed in Germany during the very early seventies....that and the blond lebanes.....nevermind...a long time ago...

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 May 03 - 07:57 PM

Since it seems from some of these responses that no one read the link I posted, here it is:

COPACETIC
Fine, excellent, going just right.

It's possible that this word has created more column inches of speculation in the USA than any other apart from OK. It's rare to the point of invisibility outside North America. People mostly become aware of it in the sixties as a result of the US space program—it's very much a Right Stuff kind of word. But even in the USA it doesn't have the circulation it did thirty years ago. Dictionaries are cautious about attributing a source for it, reasonably so, as there are at least five competing explanations, with no conclusive evidence for any of them.
One suggestion that's commonly put forward is that it was originally a word of the African-American community in the USA. The name of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, a famous black tap-dancer, singer and actor of the period round the turn of the twentieth century is commonly linked to this belief about its origin. Indeed, he claimed to have invented it as a shoeshine boy in Richmond. But other blacks, especially Southerners, said later that they had heard it earlier than Mr Robinson's day. But he certainly did a lot to popularise the word.
A second explanation that's given credence is that it derives from one of two Hebrew expressiona, hakol b'seder, "all is in order", or kol b'tzedek, "all with justice", which it is suggested were introduced into the USA by Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants. Other accounts say it derives from a Chinook word copasenee, "everything is satisfactory", once used on the waterways of Washington State, or from the French coupersetique, from couper, "to strike", or, in a hugely strained derivation, from the cop is on the settee, supposedly a hoodlum term used to describe a policeman who was not actively watching out for crime, and so one who was OK.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2003.

********************************
Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 May 03 - 10:24 PM

I read it, darlin'...just so'se ya feel better:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 May 03 - 10:35 PM

I read it too. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Tweed
Date: 08 May 03 - 11:05 PM

I didn't cause ever time I followz a Spaw hypolink it takes somewhere wif popups and pages thet haz a title obv "blank" followed by loorid photos obv pissants, nekkid wimmen who lite farts and other stuff which defy's enny description of normality. I knows better than to fall fer the joker Spaw's funny tricko stuff. Nope, I'm chock full o' cookies already thanky very much.

Yerz,
Tweed

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 08 May 03 - 11:25 PM

It was Mrs. Lukins who used the word in Bacheller's 1919 novel. That name, and use of ye in her sentence, obviously indicates the origin is to be found in Yorkshire! Remember, you first heard it here.
(Oops, did I say novel?)
Has anyone read it? Not me, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 May 03 - 04:02 AM

I must feel sorry for some of the above suggestions. The way they stretch the language inspires me to pathos in fact they're all equally unlikely.
Should I consider them all co-pathetic ?

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Sooz(at work)
Date: 09 May 03 - 08:09 AM

I have never heard the word before in my half century and a bit!

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:41 AM

I have always preferred to imagine it is a jazzy slang back formation from Copacabana, the famous night club of the 20's, where jazz was hot and everything was copacetic...blended with syncopation, man.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:44 AM

As the perpetrator of the previous thread so nobly answered by 'Spaw and others (even though he doesn't approve of my taste for American "thick ear" fiction), it never occurred to me that it could be equated with "Roger" as well as "OK".
So...
Copacetic the Skiffler

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: MMario
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:46 AM

for some reason the word is tied in my mind with 40's detective stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 03 - 01:13 PM

No, no, it's used by people who talk like this:

"The bottom line is, he keeps dropping the ball, and we can't have that! I intend to make Greede Incorporated the most profitable arms dealer in the World, and it's not going to happen if we employ guys who can't take the ball and run with it. What I want to know is, is this a sexy presentation or is it not? It's not! I've seen sexier presentations at the laundromat fer Chrissake! You can't sell a fucking missile defence system if you can't put together a sexy presentation! Is that clear? I don't know how I could make it any clearer. You don't play with the big boys if you can't cut the mustard. Got it? Are we all copacetic on that?"

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 May 03 - 02:21 PM

Hawk, maybe that's where you hear it but I have heard it from childhood on being used by people who talked about baseball standings, crabgrass, which was better-Pontiac or Mercury, etc. I didn't know people who talked about business deals as my neighborhoods were all pretty blue collar.

There are a ton of expressions used by business types (including myself, once upon a time) that drive me nuts but so I assume that's more of what you dislike. Or is it?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 May 03 - 02:57 PM

My father used to use it, and all his slang was from jazz or British armed forces slang from the 1940's. But maybe it drifted into the RAF from the American Air Force.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 03 - 03:05 PM

Hawk, you are obviously from the wrong side of the tracks. The term is used by people who say things like,

"Yeah, dad, the cool vibes in that dive can really send you out, man. When that sax lick gets laid down even the uptightest cat in the joint discovers what copacetic is, and gets to digging where it's at 'cuz of the lick being laid on the cats by Mister Cool Horn is own self..."

We copacetic on that, man?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 09 May 03 - 03:32 PM

Peter T raises a point. Some armed forces and civil service lingo is poorly ubderstood as to origin. In both WW1 and WW2, words drifted back and forth among British, Anzac and American (even more so to Canadian) personnel.
Jazz language is not yet covered well in dictionaries.
Although copasetic first appeared in an American novel, that doesn't mean that the origin is there. That is just a known reference point.

Americans often are blamed for the word 'likewise'. Certainly they used it a lot, but it was also common in 18th century British civil service writings and goes back to the 15th century in print. This is in the word books, but other word histories are still to be found. In 1987, the OED put out a large supplement, and a number of entries were earlier usages that had been found of words since the last 'complete' edition.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 03 - 04:25 PM

Ha! Ha! Ha! Well, you may be right, Spaw. And Amos' example is a beauty.

Yeah, I hate the way businessmen talk when they're trying to impress each other. My Dad, you see, has done if for years and years and years (like at least 45 of them), since he started being a CEO, and I have had to listen to him talking with some of the biggest corporate assholes the World has ever known...bla, bla, bla, bla...a bunch of kids in suits trying to outdo each other and prove who has the biggest dick (so to speak).

God, it's tedious...

One of the worst of them is named "Wolf". Absolutely perfect name for the jerk. He did time in prison a while back for tax fraud and assorted misdemeanours, and he came out looking lean and trim for the first time in years...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: open mike
Date: 09 May 03 - 04:28 PM

what's Anzac?
or where's Anzac?

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 03 - 08:37 PM

Anzac is a term describing the Allied forces from ANZO, or Australia and New Zealand.

Likewise is a normal contraction, although it has become one word now, of the expression "in like wise" meaning similarly. Nothing strange about that one.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: mg
Date: 09 May 03 - 08:46 PM

I had heard it was part of the CHinook jargon..and the French explanation makes sense as they incorporated many Chinook words. I read recently in some book of local history that some thought the origin of the word was Chinookian. But I called the tribal office today and the lady who answered had not heard of this but was going to ask their cultural experts.

Anyone from NW USA or elsewhere speak Chinook jargon? Lots of people here used to. I was surprise to find out it incorporated Hawaiaan words as well as Japanese, Russian, English, French and Spanish.

mg

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 09 May 03 - 09:07 PM

As a contraction, likewise is found in 15th C. writing. In like wise also is found in the 15th C.
Amos is right about Anzac, or Australia New Zealand Army Corps. It originated in 1915 with the Gallipoli Campaign of WW1. In 1916, Birdwood, in Bean's "Anzac Book," was quoted: "....when I took over command of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps in Egypt a year ago, I was asked to select a telegraphic code address for my Army Corps and then adopted the word 'Anzac.'" OED

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 May 03 - 10:55 PM

So...why do I have copacetic related, in my mind, with gangster movies, old ones, not new/mafia movies; and/or 50's teen movies (which I was too young to know about at the time!**bg**)?

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 09 May 03 - 11:32 PM

Since copasetic goes back to 1919, it probably has appeared in old (as werll as new) gangster movies. Your memory may not be tricking you. I think I remember it from school days (1930s-1940s), but whether it was in movies I just 'disremember.' One of those words that, if once heard, gets carried along in mental baggage and occasionally used.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 03 - 11:59 PM

Jazz and gangsters of the traditional sort mingled a lot during the heyday of jazz, especially during prohibition when liquor and organized crime were synonymous.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: CraigS
Date: 10 May 03 - 10:57 AM

When I was a lad, something that was "jacked up" had been worked on to make it out of the ordinary. Thus an ordinary working man who succeeded in politics was often jacked up by the educational courses of his union, and a musician who achieved brilliance under the influence of cocaine would be said to be jacked up. DOn't know about the above usage ...

Subject: RE: BS: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 10 May 03 - 12:50 PM

"jacked-up"- This one has been used in so many different ways that the meaning has to be taken from the context of the sentence or discussion. There are differences as well from area to area, i. e. use in Australia may be different from New Zealand, and be different in the U. K. or U. S. A.
One I hear now in western Canada is to be high on drugs, echoing the older usage by by musicians mentioned by CraigS. Probably just a step up from once common meaning of very happy. And of course a car is still jacked up to change the tires.
It means all fixed up in some areas. Well-organized in New Zealand. The OED has pages of examples of the different meanings.

The old term 'snafu' (WW2 if not earlier)-situation normal, all fucked (fouled) up- may be changing to 'jacked up' (see Tweed, above).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 03 - 01:53 PM

Cars are said to be "jacked up" when they are elevated on high shocks to give them a raked look, especially popular amongst the mechanically inclined young. Hence, raised, or lifted, or high. From the word "jack", a device for lifting. The term "jack" in slang also has many other meanings -- dough, moolah, and to steal (a contraction of hijack, I guess).

A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:59 PM

This online etymology reference offers these tidbits:

high - O.E. heh (Anglian), heah (W.Saxon) "of great height, lofty, tall," from P.Gmc. *kaukhaz, from PIE *koukos. Spelling with -gh represents a final guttural sound, now lost. Meaning "euphoric or exhilarated from alcohol" is first attested 1627, of drugs, first recorded 1932. High seas first attested c.1380, with sense (also found in the L. cognate) of "deep" as well as "tall." High-strung is originally from music; high-falutin' is first recorded 1848 in U.S. slang, possibly from high-flying, or flown, or even flute. Highbrow (n.) is from 1902 (back-formation from high-browed, attested from 1891); highball in the alcoholic sense is from 1898, probably from ball "drink of whiskey" served in a tall glass. High-class (adj.) is from 1864; high-tech is from 1972. High horse in the figurative sense of "pretentious arrogance" first recorded 1816. To high-tail "move quickly" is slang attested by 1890, from cattle ranches. High-five, originally U.S. basketball slang, is 1980 as a noun, 1981 as a verb, though the greeting itself seems to be older (e.g. Dick Shawn in "The Producers," 1968).
hijack - 1923, Amer.Eng., from high(way) + jacker "one who holds up." Originally "to rob (a bootlegger, smuggler, etc.) in transit;" sense of "seizing an aircraft in flight" is 1960s (also in 1961 variant skyjack), extended 1970s to any form of public transportation.


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 03 - 03:01 PM

Man, that sucks. What I meant to say is, this online etymology reference offers these tidbits:

high - O.E. heh (Anglian), heah (W.Saxon) "of great height, lofty, tall," from P.Gmc. *kaukhaz, from PIE *koukos. Spelling with -gh represents a final guttural sound, now lost. Meaning "euphoric or exhilarated from alcohol" is first attested 1627, of drugs, first recorded 1932. High seas first attested c.1380, with sense (also found in the L. cognate) of "deep" as well as "tall." High-strung is originally from music; high-falutin' is first recorded 1848 in U.S. slang, possibly from high-flying, or flown, or even flute. Highbrow (n.) is from 1902 (back-formation from high-browed, attested from 1891); highball in the alcoholic sense is from 1898, probably from ball "drink of whiskey" served in a tall glass. High-class (adj.) is from 1864; high-tech is from 1972. High horse in the figurative sense of "pretentious arrogance" first recorded 1816. To high-tail "move quickly" is slang attested by 1890, from cattle ranches. High-five, originally U.S. basketball slang, is 1980 as a noun, 1981 as a verb, though the greeting itself seems to be older (e.g. Dick Shawn in "The Producers," 1968).
hijack - 1923, Amer.Eng., from high(way) + jacker "one who holds up." Originally "to rob (a bootlegger, smuggler, etc.) in transit;" sense of "seizing an aircraft in flight" is 1960s (also in 1961 variant skyjack), extended 1970s to any form of public transportation.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 10 May 03 - 03:15 PM

I grew up on a small peanut farm in Tidewater Virginia. In the late 1940s and early 1950s many hours were spent in fields beside an Afro-American field hand in his 40s. He used the word copacetic regularly to suggest everything was fine or in working order. Now I regret not asking where he got the word.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 10 May 03 - 05:30 PM

In a previous thread The Skiffler brought the term up:
http://207.103.108.105/thread.cfm?threadid=57436 This is a full notation of the abreviated reply from his thread:

Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang,
- The Only Historical Dictionary of Slang, Spanning Three Hundred Years of Slang Use in America, Volume I, A-G,
J. E. Lighter,   1994, p 483.

copacetic

adj. [orig. unkn.; not, as sometimes claimed, fr. Heb, It, or Louisiana F} 1. fine, all right.

1919 in OEDS: "As to looks I'd call him, as ye night say, real copesetic." Mrs. Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly. It's last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning.

1930 Franklyn Knights of Cockpit 205: Gone loco, that's all – I had to sock him in the jaw, but he'll be copasthetic.

1934 in J. O'Hara Sel. Letter 100: " Copasetic" is a Halem and gangster corruption of an Italian word…In American it mean all right….

1943 Amer. N & Q (Aug.) 72, 1944 Gould Snowflake (ump.): Everythings copaceic! Why feel low? 1944 Kapelner Lonely Boy Blue 7 : That's capacetic with me.

1950 Funk Hangs a Tale 83:"Well, Bill, how do your feel this morning?…"Oh, jes' copesetic, boss; jes' copesetic" just fin and dandy.

1955 F. Harvey Jet 28: He…gave the old "copesetic" signal with the thumb and fingers.

1955-60 Bloch Dead Beat 108: Everything was still copacetic, everytihng was fine.

1968 Barrett Green Berets (film) Everything copacetic, sergeant?

1969 Playboy (Dec) 94:: All was copacetic for Namath.

1969 Apoll II Mission Control, in N.Y. Times (July 21) 4: All your sonsumables aare solid. You're looking good in every respect. We copy the DPS venting. Everything is copacetic. Over.

1972 N.Y. Times Bk. ReviewApril 30 40: How long will liberals go on believing in the eventual benevolence of our capitalist systerm? Or – once Vietnam is really behind us and Nixon replaced – that everything will be copacetic in the Land of the Free?

1982 Morning Line (WKGN radio) (July9): We'll see if everything is still copacetic and cool in the Middle East.

1988 C. Adams Straight Dope 452: The thumbs-up sign in Reo as in the U.S., signifies everything's copacetic.

1991 J.R. Wilson Landing Zopnes 160: These sons of bitches ain't acting right. Something ain't copasetic here.

2.

confidential.

1959 NYC grade-school students:Let's keep this copacetic.

1978 MacKillop & Cross Speaking of Words 147: Fewer still would remember the youth-oriented word from the 1940s and 1950s "copacetic" (confidential, between only us.)

copasetty

adj. COPACETIC, 1.

1921 J. Conway, in Variety (May 6) 11: To make everything copesetty he put one arm around Tomato's neck and kissed him on the forehead.

1922 Variety (June 30) 6: Of course, some of the towns is copesetty, especially where the [pickpockets] have been rippin' and tearin' and cuttin' their bit up with the local authorities.

1925 Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 285: Kopasette as approbatory epithet somewhat stronger than all right

1926 Finerty Criminalese 19: Everythin is copsetty – O.K., settled

.

1930 Lait On the Spot 32: Gee, that's hot. Is it all copesettee? Ibid 201: Copesette….Safe, O.K., all right.

Sincerely,

Your Humble Servant

Gargoyle

Ahhh...my little GigglinGato.... are so cute when you purr your questions so nicely.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 03 - 06:33 PM

1919? Jazz was barely starting to reach Chicago.

Hmm.


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 03 - 06:43 PM

Well it could be. Sidney Bechet moved to Chicago in 1917, and the first published review of a Jazz show occurred in 1918. So if, as I theorize, the word was a slot concoction dealing from "syncopation" and "aesthetic", it could have started the rounds that early. Syncopation means, literall, a slicing together; so the combined words mean a cross-cutting beauty, a syncopated style, a sharing of cool rhythm.

Makes sense to me!


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where did 'copacetic' come from?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 May 03 - 10:07 AM

I've heard the word all my life -- born and raised in New Jersey, white, working class, father and WWII vet and marginally interested in jazz..who knows where it came from?

I always thought the root of the word was the verb "to cope" -- copasetic meanding "easily coped with," or "no problem, just fine." Hadn't though of "synCOPation" at all, let along in combinaiton with "AesthETIC," but now that you mention it, that's as interesting a theory as any other...