Copasetic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up copacetic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
For the album by American Indie rock band Velocity Girl, see Copacetic (album).

Copasetic, also spelled copacetic, copesetic or - less commonly - kopasetic, means very satisfactory or acceptable or chill.

Copasetic is an unusual English language word in that it is one of the few words of seemingly unknown origin that is not considered slang in contemporary usage. It is used almost exclusively in North America, and is said to have been first widely publicized in communications between the astronauts and Mission Control of the Apollo Program in the 1960s [1] [2] [3].

[edit] Etymology

The earliest known usage given in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Irving Bacheller 1919 biography of Abraham Lincoln:

1919 I. BACHELLER Man for Ages iv. 69 ‘As to looks I'd call him, as ye might say, real copasetic.’ Mrs. Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly... Its last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning.

There are many theories to the origin of copasetic[1] [4] [5] [6]. It is widely accepted that it originated from some form of American slang. This conclusion stems from the slow introduction of the word into the written language mainly through use in periodicals and in character dialog in 20th century novels. Copasetic may have originated from African American slang in the late 19th century. It was used by African Americans in the American South (most notably by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson[7]) and by jazz musicians in Harlem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries[8].

One theory [8][9][10] claims the origins are from the Creole French language of Louisiana, specifically from the French word coupersètique (meaning "able to be coped with"; from French couper, to cut).

David Mamet has written an article about its origins[11]. He suggests that "copasetic" is a contraction of "All is well, for the Cop is on the settee." The American Heritage Dictionary lists alternate spellings that include copasetty and kopasettee, lending some credence to Mamet's theory. Mamet states:

Yes, I agree. The derivation sounds improbable in the extreme. But I fully credit it. Why? I came across it as a footnote in a book written forty years before the word became generally known. It was not, therefore, an attempt to describe the origins of a mysterious word (as this is) but a tasty tidbit in a book about crime. The rub, however, is that I can’t locate the book.

The book that Mamet references might be Gamblers Don't Gamble by Michael MacDougall who, in 1939 (not quite the forty years previous to 1960 that Mamet remembers), provided the same etymology, also tracing its origins to Chicago criminal activity[12]:

There's a lot of gambler-conman-criminal atmosphere about that language. I don't want to write a dictionary of gambler's lingo. But copasetic for instance. That goes back to the old Palmer House in Chicago which, as a very plush hotel, was a fat field for chump-hunters to work. But they could work freely only when the house-detective wasn't on the prowl. The house-dick's favorite spot for resting his feet was a certain settee down in the lobby. The chump-hunters usually kept a sentry with an eye on the settee who would report when "the cop was on the settee." As these words gradually ran together, they became copasetic and added a word to the language.

Copacetic may be a descendant of the Hebrew phrase "hakol beseder", (literally "all in [the] order" הכל בסדר) meaning "everything is alright", or "Hakol BeTzedek", meaning "everything is justified"[8][13].

Another theory[14][15] is that copacetic may have originated from Chinook Jargon, a trade language used in the Pacific Northwest to communicate between tribes, and European traders. The preposition "kopa" is very common in the language, and "Kopasetty" may have been used to mean "doing just fine". This theory was first put forth by Donald L. Martin who stated it derives from the Chinook Jargon word copasenee ("everything is satisfactory").

Yet another theory[8], put forth by novelist John O'Hara in 1934, claims (without evidence) that the word entered the African American slang lexicon via the Italian of American mobsters. Quoting O'Hara, "I don't know how to spell the Italian, but it's something like copacetti." There is no such word in the Italian language, however.

[edit] Alternate spellings

Dictionary of American Slang entry

  • kopasettee
  • copasetty

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b What the heck does copacetic mean, anyway?. The Copacetic Comics Company. Retrieved on 2007-06-19.
  2. ^ Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal: Post-landing Activities. Lunar Surface Journals for the Apollo Space Missions. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
  3. ^ Apollo 16 Lunar Surface Journal: Preparations for EVA-2. Lunar Surface Journals for the Apollo Space Missions. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
  4. ^ Copasetic. Michael Quinion's Weird Words. Retrieved on 2006-06-19.
  5. ^ Copasetic. The Word Detective. Retrieved on 2007-06-19.
  6. ^ Hey, don’t sweat it, Everything’s Copacetic!. Pointless Art. Retrieved on 2007-06-19.
  7. ^ Bill "Bojangles" Robinson even claimed that he invented the word himself, although this claim has not been taken seriously as many contemporaries stated that they had heard the word before Robinson
  8. ^ a b c d American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 
  9. ^ Stuart Berg Flexner (1982). Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from our Lively and Splendid Past. 
  10. ^ Funk, Charles Earle (October 1953), “Bill Robinson's 'Copesetic'”, American Speech 28 (1): 230-231 
  11. ^ Mamet, David (October 2005). "Linguistic Anomalies For Shut-Ins". The Believer. 
  12. ^ Michael MacDougall and J.C. Furnas (1940). Gamblers Don't Gamble, 2nd, 67-68. 
  13. ^ copsetic. Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved on 2007-10-01.
  14. ^ Eric Partridge (1984). A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 8th. 
  15. ^ Greetings & Courtesies. Chinook Jargon Phrasebook. Retrieved on 2006-09-12.

copasetic song by Local H (2005)