| 词源 |
copacetic. The word is also spelled copesetic, leading Par- tridge to suggest that this slang for “excellent, all right,” or “all safe or clear,” as he defines it, is a combination of cope and anti- septic. But the expression is American and was largely confined to black speech when first recorded in the 1920s. Luther Bill “Bojangles” Robinson may have invented copacetic, and the great tap dancer certainly did popularize it in his routines, giv- ing the word wide currency. Robinson claimed he coined it when he was a shoeshine boy in Richmond. But a number of southerners have testified that they heard the expression used by parents or grandparents long before this. Another theory holds that copecetic is from a Yiddish word meaning the same. It’s also spelled kopasetic and kopesetic. |