There are no print records of the word ‘emcee’ prior to the October 1933 publication of Variety. Chat- i®’’.^fers to :her lazihess mostly and Ross handles It nicely, Beniiy tr’^i emcees the show and d^oes the Best Job along that line so far. “ Ross splUs most of the ■ chatter, with Miss Stone acting. Deuce spot held by Benny Ross and Maxlne Stone. The earlier quote was transcribed in the full text copy as such: The text transcript is computer-generated and produces a high frequency of errors due to the quality of the original scan of the 1933 publication. Benny also emcees the show and does the best job along that line so far.Ī screenshot of a page of the weekly Variety publication Chatter refers to her laziness mostly and Ross handles it nicely. Ross spills most of the chatter, with Miss Stone acting lazy, leaning up against piano or laying on it. The word is used as such in this abstract:ĭeuce Spot held by Benny Ross and Maxine Stone. The word is in use on page 15 out of 64 of that issue. The earliest print record of the word ‘emcee’ can be found in the publication of Variety dated Tuesday, October 17, 1933. I click through Internet Archive’s collection of Variety publications starting from 1930 - it’s a lot. I’m interested in pinpointing the exact first occurrence of ‘emcee’. A term in the list is ‘emceeing’, defined by them as ‘master of ceremonies’. Ames and Schultz provides a list of words they claim Variety has developed. It is unclear whether Variety invented these terms by themselves, or simply popularized them in print media. Not even the writers for the sporting pages of the metropolitan dailies have taken the liberties in word-coining indulged by the editorial staff of this weekly journal. Variety, the weekly bible of the theatrical profession and entertainment world in general, has developed a vocabulary all of its own. They cite Variety, at the time a weekly entertainment publication, as the source of industry-specific vocabularies. The origin of ‘emcee’ in print mediaĪ paper written by Ames and Schultz in 1937 discusses American colloquialism. ‘Ok’ was formed first in the mid-19th century, and much like ‘emcee’, the phonetic spelling ‘okay’ was developed and popularized after, although the specific etymology of ‘okay’ is uncertain. ‘Master of Ceremonies’ simply describes a role of the host of a ceremony or event.Īn example in which the phonetic spelling of a word was also popularized, is ‘ok’ and ‘okay’. ‘Emcee’ is more accurately described not as a direct derivation of the full term, a phonetic spelling of an acronym of the full term. It is a written representation for the pronunciation of ‘MC’, which is the acronym of ‘Master of Ceremonies’. Oxford English Dictionary provides the first use for ‘emcee’ as originating from the United States in the 1930s. How, why, and what context induced the need to lengthen the acronym in the first place? I flip through 1930s magazines in an attempt to find out. What is the short form of ‘Master of Ceremonies’? Some of you might think ‘emcee’ came first and ‘mc’ was an abbreviation of that - but it’s actually the other way around.
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