The report http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcopacetic.html by Euty on Copacetic is excellent, I just had one nit to pick -
In Hebrew, the phrase is “kol b’seder” not “hakol b’seder.”
“kol” means all or everything, while “ha-” is a prefix-definite article. If you had “ha-kol” it would be “the everything,” and I’m only familiar with that phrasing in a liturgical sense (i.e. that God created ‘the everything’).
David Barak
–Fully RFC 1925 Compliant–
I have nothing to add in reference to the subject at hand, however, I must comment on your excellent posting.
It is clear, concise and intelligent, you provided a link to the original thread, and you posted in the correct forum.
A 10 overall! More, please!
Welcome to the boards!
Thank you. flattery will get you everywhere
-David
Euty, most American Jews, shopkeepers or otherwise, do not speak Hebrew. In the golden olden days, Yiddish was often the language of choice, but the two are unrelated. (There are borrow words, but I don’t think “hakol b’seder” is one of them.)
P.S. barak, I’ve heard people use the phrase with the definite article.
Of course
as you mentioned, most American Jews don’t speak Hebrew (at least not to fluency), and thus, hearing someone misuse a phrase would not be surprising.
However, another nit - Hebrew and Yiddish are quite thoroughly related (although not in the same linguistic family)- Yiddish is more recent, and includes large numbers of Hebrew words and phrases.
-David Barak
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Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, barak, glad to have you with us.
Just to note that Euty was merely citing other authorities who have suggested origins; Euty himself said these all sounded implausible. There have been lots of efforts to attribute English words to “ancient Hebrew” based on a stretched pun sound-alike. While there are a few English words that derive from ancient Hebrew, there are lots more that derive from Yiddish. Emes?
The Hebrew origin for copacetic are discussed by John Ciardi in “A Second Browser’s Dictionary” and “Good Words To You.”
I have a copy of a “Dictionary of American Slang” edited by Wentowrth and Flexner, 1960, that cites copacetic in 1926 and says it is from the Yiddish.
Partirdge cites the Chinook origin from 1925 in British Columbia as a Canadian adaptation.
my two cents worth.
The Creole explanation makes the most sense. The definition (as shown) best matches the kind of casual agreement/acceptance the word entails. Considering the importance of the port of New Orleans and the Misissippi, a useful word such as copacetic would have had little problem spreading among the general population. The French/Creole population would have had much more of an influence than Italian. Hebrew (if at all) and Chinook would not have been as commonly heard as Creole. The Jewish shopkeeper/black customer explanation is a real stretch and needlessly race/culture based - The word was first common among blacks and later spread to whites? Would not blacks have had more contact with Creole speakers than Hebrew speakers? the shopkeepers would not have had any white customers who could have picked up the word themselves? Copacetic could have creeped into both American English and Yiddish very easily. Creole (to me at least) requires the least strech of the imagination.
Re: the intro. Bag of worms? Where I came from, the worms were always in a can.
Euty You laid it out rather nicely. Well done.
Jon Lighter, who edited the Random House Dictionary of Historical American Slang says “origin unknown.” He then says “NOT, as sometimes claimed, from Hebrew, Italian, or Louisiana French.”
Since Lighter does this for a living and is the professional, I suggest we take him at his word. I also searched for the word over at the American Dialect Society mailing list. Nothing further.
While the OED cites it first in 1919, then skips to a 1930 cite and the 1934 O’Hara cite, there are cites for the word spelled copasetty or variants as follows:
1921, Variety
1922, Variety again
1925, in a book called Nigger Heaven. spelled “Kopasetee”
1926, Crimanalese “Everything is copsetty–OK, settled.”
barak writes:
> . . . Hebrew and Yiddish are quite thoroughly related (although
> not in the same linguistic family) . . .
No, they’re not related. Yiddish is a member of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European linguistic family. Indeed, it’s close enough to German that it’s sometimes considered a dialect of it. Hebrew is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Yiddish has, it’s true, borrowed a fair number of words from Hebrew, but that doesn’t make them related. “Related” is a technical term in linguistics, and you’re misusing the word.
In the early days of his expermentation with electricity, physicist Alessandro Volta was trying to find a better battery. He experimented with various combinations of materials, but he couldn’t get anything to work right. One day he tried a new combination and got the shock of his life. Fearing he was about to be electrocuted, he shouted out the combination of materials to his monolingual English lab assistant so the secret wouldn’t be lost with him: “Zinc, copper, acetic!” (He was so overcome with emotion he couldn’t vocalize the last word, “acid.”) His hard-of-hearing assistant misheard it as “Think copacetic.”
Ever since that fateful day, anything that you get a charge out of has been called “copacetic.”
Actually, bib it dates back to the 1700s in England, before the invention of the police force in the 1820s. Policework had to be done by the religious orders, mainly monks specially trained not only in defending the poor, but also sworn to living lives of self-deprivation. Hence, the Cop Ascetics.
Monks . . . in England . . . in the 1700’s. But . . . oh, never mind.
<< Monks . . . in England . . . in the 1700’s. But . . . oh, never mind. >>
Yes, they had many bizarre rituals, including introducing fish and chips to England. Their Friday meals were fish and chips, they were the fish and chip monks.
If you’re asking for historical consistency, it wouldn’t be copacetic, would it?
Is that the origin of Monkfish?
[sub]searching for the truth[/sub]
Try this for a second opinion.
http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-cop1.htm
If Mr. Bojangles was largely responsible for popularizing the word, perhaps he picked it up from some of his Yiddish-speaking, entertainment industry associates?
Just an unfounded WAG
Martin
Sorry for jumping into this thread rather late in the game, but I just have to respond to Barak’s OP:
As a full-time Hebrew speaker, I must attest that Kyla:
is, if anything, still understating the issue.
when asked “Ma Nishma?” (how’s it going?) my response will definitely be “Hakol Beseder” (all’s well).
That I would normally be lying is, of course, completely beside the point 
Dan Abarbanel
Click here for more about yiddish.
;j