[Dixielandjazz] Gig

[G. William Oakley]

Hi Paul:
The answer appears to be there is no answer.
See below:


Q] From Dick Bellach: "The slang word gig is used by professional 
performers, usually musicians, but not limited to them, to mean a paying 
engagement they have agreed to do: 'I'm playing a gig at the Metropole next 
Monday'. The term is so ubiquitous, I've heard it has spread to England and 
the Continent. But, to my knowledge, no one knows its origin. Can you be of 
assistance?"

[A] The term is usually taken to be of American origin, but the interesting 
thing is that the first two citations in the Oxford English Dictionary are 
from a London publication, Melody Maker, in 1926 and 1927. So the word in 
this sense has long been known in Britain.

Gig is yet another of those words for which researchers can give no firm 
origin, and what follows is largely supposition, following the leads given 
by Dr Jonathan Lighter in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American 
Slang.

The oldest sense of gig was of something that whirled or turned (as in 
whirligig); much later it was applied to a fast two-wheeled carriage, 
presumably because its big wheels went around quickly, and later to a fast 
ship's boat. There are many other senses.

>From the 1840s in the US, Mr Lighter shows it also applied to a form of 
betting, involving a set of three or five numbers selected by the bettor. 
>From his examples, it seems the winning numbers were drawn from a rotating 
device, called a wheel, presumably like a lottery or tombola drum, which 
must be the link to the name. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Mr 
Lighter suggests the word had begun to be applied more generally to a 
business, state of affairs, or an undertaking or event. This may have been 
influenced by a similar sense of gag that had come into being by the 1890s.

However, the great majority of Mr Lighter's examples in this sense date from 
1957 or later, with only one from 1907 to suggest that it pre-dated the 
application of gig to an engagement to perform live music. This is why 
dictionaries are cautious about accepting this sequence of development of 
the word, even though it seems to be plausible.

These days, gig can have a wide range of senses, including a fairly new one 
that refers to any short-term paying commission or job; it need not be 
associated with music or performance, but it does preclude permanent 
full-time employment.



Best,

Bill

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed Danielson" <mcvouty78 at hotmail.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 5:49 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Gig


>A friend wrote to ask the origin of the word "gig" -- "in musician terms, 
>not technoid terms," she says.
>
> I have no idea.  Is there a would-be John Ciardi on the list who might 
> want to tackle this one?
>
> Ed Danielson
>
>
>
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