the.com/jive
language so cool it needed its own dictionary just to deny outsiders entry
means Jive is fast, slangy, exuberant talk—or jazzy music to dance to—and as a verb it means either to dance to that music or to talk nonsense and try to deceive someone.
from Jive surfaced in 1920s American Black English, in the world of jazz musicians and Harlem hipsters, meaning glib or deceptive talk before it swung over to mean the music and dance itself. Its deeper roots are murky and much-argued: some trace it to Wolof jev or jeu, 'to talk disparagingly,' carried over in the speech of enslaved West Africans, but this is a plausible suggestion rather than proven fact. What's certain is that jive lived as in-group code—language built partly to keep squares out, which is exactly the trick the essence names.
- origins
- emerged in 1920s Black American jazz culture
- double meaning
- also means deceptive nonsense, as in jive talk
- airplane fame
- 1980 film gave two grandmas legendary jive subtitles
- dance form
- became a fast, bouncy ballroom dance worldwide
- jitterbug kin
- swing dancers jived to survive the Depression
lindy hop — swing dance that emerged in harlem in the 1930s, often called jive in the uk
jive turkey slang — african american vernacular popularized in 1970s soul and funk culture, especially in richard pryor's comedy