Part 2 || Upbeat, Downbeat, Offbeat

The American Dialect Society

Upbeat, Downbeat, OffbeatSource: American Speech, Vol. 33, No. 2, Part 2 (May, 1958), pp. 46-53Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/453648 .

Accessed: 24/02/2014 09:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The American Dialect Society and Duke University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to American Speech.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 66.77.17.54 on Mon, 24 Feb 2014 09:02:58 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke

http://www.jstor.org/stable/453648?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


II. OTHER WORDS AND USAGES

UPBEAT, DOWNBEAT, OFFBEAT

Webster's gives for the musical definition of upbeat: 'An unaccented beat in

any kind of measure; specif., the last beat of the measure.' If memory serves,

among dance-band musicians forty years ago, the 'upbeat' was the anacrusic element before the first full measure. (In accordance with the Webster's

definition, such an anacrusis could be regarded as the last beat of a fragmentary measure.)

Among those same musicians of the dim past the 'downbeat'-a word which

my dictionaries do not list-was the firsc accent of the first measure of a piece. Perhaps this sense is to be attached to Down Beat as the name of a dance musicians' magazine published in Chicago.

For the musical term offbeat, Webster's gives, 'The part of a measure other than the principally accented one.' That is, offbeat seems to signify, according to Webster's, the upbeat portion of a two-beat measure or the upbeat portions, taken collectively, of a measure of more than two beats.

In recent applications upbeat, downbeat, and offbeat' have acquired senses

that, considered as figurative extensions, have values that are far from those of the musical terms-that are, indeed, in some part antithetical to the musical values. These recent applications will be exemplified for each of the words in turn.

Upbeat.-At hand are citations that show upbeat used severally in the pre- sumptive senses, 'lively, cheerful, prosperous, rising, successful.' I take 'lively' or 'rising' to be the meaning in a subhead of an article reporting, in part, that certain high-school students of jazz prefer the variety called bebop over other kinds. But in order to convey the import of the subhead it will be best to

give also the accompanying headline and another subhcad.

[Headline] Jazz Grows Up into Jet-Propelled 'Bebop' [Subhead1 Teen-Age Musicians

Shove/'Moldy' Swing Deities/Out of Mount Olympus [Subhead] Dizzy Gillespie, Yard-

bird/Parker, Thelonius Monk/Get Nod in Up-Beat Set (In an article by Bill Gottlieb, HT, Sept. 26, 1947, p. I6/3-5-)2

Perhaps the sense 'cheerful' (and 'entertaining'?) is to be attributed to upbeat

I. The formations are sometimes written as separate words, sometimes hyphenated, and sometimes solid. In my discussion they will be written solid.

2. In the article up beat and down beat are used with musical application, as follows:

'Dizzy explains, "the accents in bebop tend to fall on the up beat, while in swing it falls more on the down beat." ' This explanation might mean simply that there is more syncopation in bebop than in swing. The more frequent accentuation of the upbeat might have

something to do with the identification of bebop lovers as 'the Up-Beat Set,' but the likeli- hood of other meanings (as suggested above) is not thereby excluded.



OTHER WORDS AND USAGES 47

in the following, which is from an advertisement addressed to advertising men, about a magazine:

Upbeat treatments of topics that interest everybody (like the delightfully un-Freudian marital quiz on this page) are the reason Coronet's circulation is just about to break the three-million mark. (HT, Aug. 25, I952, p. 26.)

In the following I take upbeat to mean 'prosperous' or 'successful':

The big news of 1951 was the end of the decline and the beginnings of new hope for the future. It was an 'upbeat' year. (Barney Balaban, "51 was "Upbeat" But '52 Looms as

"Challenge Year," ' Variety, Jan. 2, 1952, P. 5. The words upbeat and downbeat are used

repeatedly in this article in Variety. Below I cite the backformation beat from the same source.)

The noun upbeat is found in the heading of a note3 on a series of perform- ances which, the writer indicates, was a favorable development for recital dance: 'Upbeat for Modern Dance.'

Upbeat is a noun also in the title of an article, 'Upbeat for a Song-writing Duo,'4 about Jerry Ross and Richard Adler, highly successful writers of songs and musical comedy scores. But in this title the word may also signify 're-

covery,' as is suggested by a subhead: 'Ross and Adler, Broadway's hottest

young composers, are rallying from the effects of fame--bronchiectasis and

prosperity-induced depression.' The 'upbeat' in music is, as we have seen, the weaker beat in the musical

measure. But the extended uses of upbeat, as exemplified above, emphasize a

special degree of strength and affirmativeness. Thus the figurative application has taken a direction that is the reverse of what would be expected if the technical sense were to the fore. Obviously, what rules is the suggestion in up rather than the musical sense of upbeat. A similar reversal is even more strik-

ing in the extended applications of downbeat.

Dozwnbeat.-The general dictionaries do not list downbeat. To my ac-

quaintance, as noted above, the word has signified the first beat of the first measure of a piece; in this sense the 'downbeat' is the strong accent that marks the full onset of the rhythm. Thus the 'downbeat' is striking, driving, vigorously initiatory.5 But downbeat is now being used in the senses 'un-

fortunate, unpopular,6 discouraged, melancholy, tragic':

3. By John Martin, NYT Mag, May i, 1955, p. 28.

4. Gilbert Millstein, NYT Mag, June i9, 1955, p. 20.

5. In a picture caption at hand downbeat may mean 'the principally accented part of the measure': ' "Hit it Harry," yells [James C.] Petrillo, swinging into downbeat as [former President Harry S.] Truman pounds out final chords of song.' (Life, June 28, 1954, p. 29.)

6. B1&VDB (454-3) itemizes downbeat among the expressions for 'Social Dud or Bore;

Drip.' The same work gives (5i8.ro) a musical sense for downbeat that is unfamiliar to

me: 'the introductory measures.'



48 OTHER WORDS AND USAGES

The visitor to Europe may be overwhelmed by the manifold difficulties and distressed by the down-beat mood of the people, yet he is constantly reminded that there are in Europe intangibles more real than economics and politics. (Lester Markel, 'European Ledger: Tangibles-Intangibles,' NYT Mag, Jan. 6, r95z, p. 1o.)

For years . . . the producers have gone on the theory that the public resists tragedies; that no type of film is more chancey, from the box-office point of view, than the one that is loaded with misery and ends on a note of despair. So positive has been this conviction that such pictures have, in recent years, acquired a terse and politely snooty label. They have been tagged 'downbeat' films, as distinct, of course, from the 'upbeats' that end tri- umphantly. (Bosley Crowther, 'Hollywood Accents the Downbeat,' NYT Mag, March x6, 1952, p. 22.)

The first great 'downbeat' film, which set the pace for all others, was Griffith's 'Broken Blossoms' (i919) ... . (Letter from Seymour Stern, NYT Mag, March 30, 1952.)

'The City' [a book by Julius Horwitz] covers the downbeat side but leaves unmentioned the genuine happiness and fulfillment that New York brings to many of its people. (Review by Herbert Mitgang, headed 'New York Downbeat,' NYT Bk Rev, July 12, 1953, p. 17.)

'Fresh or canned, fruit cup is rather down-beat, party-wise.' (Mrs. W. Mahlon Dickerson

quoted by Lillian Ross, 'Terrific,' NYker, April z4, 1954, p. 44.)

. . that pictorially memorable march up the twilit hill of a dusty Southern town has an inexplicably plodding and down-beat air about it. (Walter F. Kerr, 'Theater,' HT, Sept. 19, 1955-)

But inauspicious connotations of downbeat are absent when a note about Olin Downes, music critic of NYT, is headed 'Downes Beat.'" In this pun the sense of beat 'a round or course frequently gone over's is prominent, but the

popularity of the beat-expressions contributes stylish brightness-without, presumably, introducing the somber connotations of the heavily exploited downbeat.

As one more sign of the popularity of this formation in -beat perhaps it will be well to notice the following in a picture caption: '.. .Judy [Garland, an entertainer and actress] listens pensively to a playback of "Downbeat Club" number she has just recorded.'9 A song seems to be in reference.

Offbeat.-In my collection, employments of offbeat far outnumber those of

upbeat or downbeat. Also, the extended use of offbeat seems to show a more

complex development than does the use of the other formations in -beat. The denotations of offbeat have two centers, which no doubt grade into each other. The one center can be represented by the definition 'unconventional, out-of-

the-ordinary'; the second, by the definition 'questionable, erroneous, im-

plausible, inferior.' Employments of offbeat centering around the first of these definitions seem to signalize connotation that ranges mainly from the neutral to the favorable. Because of the unfavorable denotation attached to the second

definition, such connotation is not an issue.

7. Advt. of NYT, NYker, Feb. i9, 1955, p. 55- 8. Webster's, s.v. beat n. (4). 9. Life, Sept. 13, 1954, p. I66.




The author of 'Lo and Behold,' which opened at the Booth last night, has a highly indi- vidual wit, a fey and off-beat slant on the process of making people laugh which can double an audience up in sudden merriment. (Walter F. Kerr, 'The Theaters,' HT, Dec. 13, 195 1, p. 34/1-2.)

Nothing austere, stark, or respectful mars its off-beat charm. (Review by James Kelly, NYT Bk Rev, Oct. 19, 1952, P. 4.)

Mayer, like his satellite Arthur Freed, believes in clean, cheerful, romantic, American entertainment. Schary does too, of course, but he's willing to take more chances on off-beat stuff like Huston's and Reinhardt's 'Red Badge.' (Book review by Budd Schulberg, NYT Bk Rev, Nov. 23, 1952, p. 4.)

At other moments it [The Barber of New York, a one-act opera by Ashley Vernon and Greta Hartwig] reproduces the Viennese 'salon' composers or makes beckoning gestures in the direction of 192o's off-beat jazz. (Jay S. Harrison, ' "The Barber of New York" Has Premiere at Hunter,' HT, May 27, 1953, p. 16/7.)

One reason for this [interest of Tic Polonga, the book under review] is that Mr. Anderton knows a lot about precious jewels, and a man describing the technical aspects of an off-beat trade is always interesting. (Margaret Parton, 'Book Review,' HT, June 27, 1953, p. 6/7.)

Hondo [a motion picture] is what is known to the trade as an 'offbeat western.' (' "Hondo" Is 3-D's Best,' Life, Dec. 14, 1953, p. 126.)

. ..the cops, when they finally had the evidence to raid her [a bordello madam], found all the equipment for the off-beat pleasures sought by a sophisticated and twisted clientele.

(Polly Adler, A House Is Not a Home [New York and Toronto, 1953], P. 300.)

Little-known Caribbean islands offer low-priced, off-beat foreign vacations (Subhead, 'West Indies Escape,' Life, Jan. I I, 1954, p. 76.)

In fact, life runs pretty self-consciously wild in 'Desperate Scenery,' the seventh volume to appear in Elliot Paul's rambling off-beat chronicle of his life that he calls 'Items on the Grand Account.' (Lewis Gannett, 'Book Review,' HT, July 9, 1954.)

'The Blue Angel' is an oddity among New York night clubs. It was started in 1943 ... and it was designed to bring to New York some of the intimate and offbeat quality of a Paris boite. Over the years the entertainers that have paraded across its miniscule stage have been more offbeat and variegated and just plain different than anything you'll find in a Paris boite. (John Crosby, 'Radio and Television,' HT, July I6, 1954.)

Off-Beat Detection (Heading on a review by Joseph Wood Krutch, NYT Bk Rev, Nov. 7, 1954, p. 24.)

The successful passages of offbeat humor, and left-field sentiment, don't quite blend. (Walter F. Kerr, 'Theater,' HT, Jan. 2o, 1955.)

Politically it [Norman Thomas's career] has been an off-beat career, yet it cannot be called unsuccessful. (Irwin Ross, 'Norman Thomas, Respectable Heretic,' Progressive, March, 1955, p. 17.)

My own reaction was a little off-beat in that the article acted as (S) and my (R) was to

shy away from a study (only a questionnaire) of what appeared to be a screened, selected group of pupils. (Jacob A. Ornstein, 'Education in the News,' High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, XXXVII [19551, 45-)

A fascinating little offbeat tale ... (Book note, NYker, Sept. 17, 1955, P r73.) Alfred Mclntyre was the publisher who encouraged a young writer named Marquand

to finish an offbeat novel called 'The Late George Apley.' (Lewis Gannett, 'Book Review,' HT, Oct. 17, 1955.)

Perspectives USA is published by Intercultural Publications, Inc . . . which is headed by James Laughlin, the founder and owner of the offbeat publishing house, New Directions.

(Dwight Macdonald, 'Foundations,' NYker, Dec. 3, 1955, p. 102.)




In the foregoing citations the favorable connotation of offbeat, when it occurs, seems to arise mainly from a process that can be schematized: 'A good book

[etc.] is out-of-the-ordinary. This book [etc.] is out-of-the-ordinary. There- fore this book [etc.] is in some respect a good one.' A 'substratum' contribu- tion to favorable connotation may derive from the phrase off the beaten path.

We turn now to the second definition proffered for offbeat: 'questionable, erroneous, implausible, inferior.' Reviewing Rendezvous with Destiny by Eric Goldman, Lewis Gannett began a paragraph by praising the author's breadth of reading, his attempt to state the philosophies of American 'progressivism,' and his 'gift for a phrase.' 'But,' Gannett wrote, citing certain lacks, 'he seems

oddly bookish and off-beat in some of his emphases.'"" Here off-beat seems to

signify 'erroneous.' About Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of History the same critic said: 'The rhythm of history, projected into the future, seems to be off-

beat; the real music of Mr. Toynbee's masterwork is the symphonies of the

past."' I judge that the quoted sentence means that Toynbee's predictions do not seem plausible, but very likely this interpretation is debatable. In the

early stages of semantic extension (and the meanings of offbeat discussed here are comparatively recent developments) a given expression seems quickly to

acquire various branches of meaning; in many applications the branch intended may not be clear. In these circumstances purport and vagueness are as

inseparable as coloratura sopranos and flutes. The clarity of the last-quoted example from Gannett is not sharpened by

the fact that off-beat is an element in a musical trope. What is an offbeat

rhythm? A syncopated one? It is hardly likely that syncopation is in mind,

since in familiar usage that would suggest jazz12-surely the last thing that would come to mind vis-ai-vis Toynbee. Perhaps no definite musical conception can be looked for here; I surmise that the writer, relying on a popular ex-

pression, has not bothered to attend to details of his trope.13 The multiple branching of offbeat is further illustrated in a heading on a

story about the opinion of the British composer Vaughan Williams that the existence of 'perhaps a thousand' inferior musicians is necessary to the production of a virtuoso. The heading: 'Vaughan Williams Taps Drum Even for

io. 'Books and Things,' HT, Dec. 26, i952. I i. 'Book Review,' HT, Oct. 14, 1954- I2. The special association of syncopation with jazz-jazz may even be identified as

'syncopation'-is widespread and curious. I daresay that other music-e.g., symphonic music-has a greater infusion of syncopation than does jazz.

13. If it needs to be said, my comments are not intended to be an elaboration of sup- posed 'faults' in Gannett's phrasing. I read Gannett's reviews regularly and I found them shrewd and illuminating. In the present instances his use of off-beat has been examined in some detail because I think it has features that are typical in the general employment of the word.




Off-Beats.'14 Here, then, an off-beat is an inferior musician. The incorpora- tion of the word in a musical trope will again be noticed. The trope can be rationalized to the extent that offbeat signifies the dynamically weaker part of a measure. But there is an extension of the figurative analogy when, in

effect, inferiority is attributed to the offbeat. Further, the 'even' of the head-

ing seems to imply (wrongly, when literal meaning is considered) that it is unusual for a drummer to tap on the offbeat.

How does this second group of employments, embodying 'negative' values, come to exist together with the mainly favorable and neutral values noted earlier for offbeat? The explanation lies, I think, in associations with one

meaning of the word off, with various phrases embodying off as a preposition, and with the musical phrase off beat, meaning 'not in accordance with the set

tempo.' The word off, adj. may mean 'below standard' (Webster's, s.v. 3). As for relevant phrases, off color, off one's rocker, off the beam, and others found in B& VDB show directions taken by some off-phrases. Perhaps to be considered separately is off one's beat, which B&VDB defines (258.6) as 'not in one's line or sphere,' under the general heading 'Unskilled; Incapable.'

An interesting phase of the cultivation of fad expressions is the production of variants. The following examples, showing up-tempo, off-the-beat, and low- beat, are offered without any attempt to relate their use to the meaning of their constituents:

Music for the Up-Tempo (Program announced on radio station WGSM, Huntington, N.Y., Aug. zo, 1950, just before 8 P.M.)

Called 'The Prez' by other saxophone players, Lester Young (left) was one of the early experimenters with his frenetic off-the-beat style of 'cool' jazz. (Pict. cap., Life, Jan. 17, 1954, p. 46.)

[An advertisement of Bergdorf Goodman in NYT-I failed to note the date and have been unable to obtain it-announces 'Our "Beat the Drum" Handbags made for us by Ronay.' The bags are in three sizes-ten, eight, and six inches high-and are called, re-

spectively, Up-Beat, Down-Beat, and Low-Beat.]

Originally introduced after World War II, when the popularity of war shows was on the upbeat, [i.e., when the popularity was on the upswing?] the tale . . . emerged as a relic of the past. (M. T., 'TV Brings Back "Bell for Adano," ' HT, June 4, 1956, p. 15/5.)

And in the era of the 'beat,' when we encounter off-trail as used in the

following we may hear an 'offbeat' not far away:

Gabriell [sic] d'Annunzio . . . credited her with leading him to God, an off-trail per- formance for the Sorel . . . (John K. Hutchens, 'Book Review,' HT, Sept. 6, 1954.)

It is not always easy to furnish a definition for beat in its current applications. I leave it to the reader to determine what the word means in each of the

14. NYT, Nov. 28, 1954, p. 34/4.




following quotations; 'rhythm,' 'mood,' and 'musical style' are some possibilities:

'The Crimson Pirate' opened yesterday at the Paramount in a house jammed to the gun- wales with devotees of the heavy beat, because Louis Satchmo Armstrong is in the stage show. (Paul V. Beckley, 'On the Screen,' HT, Aug. 28, 1952.)

Indeed, so confused has been the thinking of most producers in Hollywood on the matter of the 'beat' of pictures ... (Balaban, sup. cit. under 'Upbeat.')

Whether or not the language of the play is poetic enough for its wistful ambitions never comes clear-the beat of the staging is stronger than it is. (Walter F. Kerr, 'The Theaters,' HT, Feb. 20, 1953.)

'I'm feeling the most today... I build [a musical radio-program] according to my mood, so I'll mainly be needing beat music.' (Al Collins, a disc jockey, quoted, 'The Talk of the Town,' NYker, Sept. i8, 1954, p. 30.)

Continuing on the O'Hara agenda is a narrative poem about a jazz drummer and to be told in several jazz beats. (Lewis Nichols, 'Talk with John O'Hara,' NYT Bk Rev, Nov. 27,

1955, P. I6.) Even the language [of Fulton Fish Market, New York City] had a special beat. It wasn't

distinct or drawled out. It swung in a rhythm and sounded almost Mediterranean, like Arabic, Italian or Portuguese. . . . When Alexander Scourby recorded the narration [for the film Fish Market], he put some of that beat into his reading. (Leroy Stone, 'The Story of Fulton Fish Market,' City College Ahrmnus, Nov., 1955, p. 6.)

Can hot jazz win the 'cold war' for the West? Even those who admire Guy Lombardo would say 'yes' to that one after hearing the man who took the Dixieland beat to Europe and captivated audiences from Norway to Spain. ('Europe Likes Jazz, Armstrong Reports,' NYT, Jan. , 956, p. 5/3.)

The foregoing examples seem to show beat as what might be called a semantic back formation from upbeat, downbeat, and offbeat. That is, the sense is not confined to the established range of meanings for beat; such senses (which seem inferable) as 'mood' and 'musical style' are outside that range. More-

over, the very uncertainty that we feel as to the meaning in some contexts

suggests that we are confronted with a new sense or configuration of senses for the word. The possibility of, e.g., 'mood' as one novel sense for beat is

heightened by the fact that upbeat and downbeat are often used to describe moods of particular kinds-cheerful, depressed, etc. Further as to the hypoth- esis of semantic back-formation-so to call it-it is to be remembered that Balaban repeatedly used downbeat in his article cited and Kerr occasionally uses a formation in -beat in his play reviews. Without the background of free

employment of the beat-compounds by these writers and many others, it seems to me unlikely that the former would speak of 'the "beat" of pictures' or the latter of 'the beat of the staging.'

As pointed out earlier, the extended senses of upbeat, downbeat, and offbeat are often-probably usually-unrelated to musical senses. The elements up, down, and off set the sense-patterns for the words; the element beat, it might




be said, furnishes atmosphere by way of figurative excitement rooted in an art of wide appeal. Apropos of offbeat, the possible 'substratum' influence of various phrases introduced by off is to be taken into account. A few variants were noted for upbeat, etc.-products, perhaps, of the aspirations to originality that curiously become imposed on the satisfactions of using a fashionable cliche. As to the level of usage, upbeat, downbeat, and offbeat being freely used in some literary and dramatic criticism, they appear to be on the way to standard rank.

THE OBSESSIVE LOOK

In 1947 there burst on the world a style of women's dress detonated by the French designer Christian Dior and called the New Look. The style received

wide publicity; its name became well drilled into the public consciousness. No doubt soon after its introduction it began to be applied otherwise than to the Dior style, and by the time of the 1954 issue of Webster's the Addenda of that work noticed not only the application to the style of dress but the extended sense of 'the changed appearance or make-up of anything into which radical innovations have been recently introduced.'

In the years since the introduction of the Dior design new look and variants have raged on every hand in advertising and journalism and elsewhere. They have been used in a multitude of spheres in which bright and up-to-date ex-

pression is at a premium-even in deliberations on high affairs of state. As for some of the changes that were rung on the New Look, it was an easy

step to a new look; and on many occasions new was replaced by other words. The possibilities of the active sense of look were not missed, so that new look

might signify 'fresh scrutiny' rather than-as in its 1947 incarnation-'novel

appearance.' In motion here are some post-Dior exemplifications of the use of new look and its offshoots.

A social thinker might well conclude that the use of new look is a means of

cementing bonds between people of widely different interests and statuses, and thus putting social stratifications into soft focus. While limitations of

space forbid documentation here, I have seen the expression used in a shoc- maker's sign and in newspaper and magazine reports on international rela-

tions; and applied in references to the Department of Justice of the United

States, police uniforms, a 'dairy bar,' a newspaper format, football, and Soviet music; as well as in advertisements. In one report, use of the expression was ascribed-though not in direct quotation-to the Prime Minister of Great Britain and in direct quotation to the President of the United States (in

response). In each of two examples from advertising, look-expressions are used twice



Documents

Part 2 || Upbeat, Downbeat, Offbeat