It seems possible that an interesting thread might be developed concerning the origins, differences among cultures, and the various names for the concept "cool"
I think that it basically refers to control of emotions.
Control suggests a source of strength, lack of control, weakness.
Imagine two very primitive men meeting unexpectedly. If one is calm, and the other shows fear, the calm one has an advantage.
The Greeks allegedly had a word for everthing. What was their equivalent of "cool" ?
The Latin aequanimitas was a broad philosophical term.
So do any of you have ideas about how the concept of "cool" developed? And the shades of meaning in the various closely related words? And the differences in various cultures?

I know we do not say cool in French Québec to mean what you say. We say someone is acting cool (il fait son frais) to mean the person is showing off. It is rather negative.

Kids will use the English cool (c'est pas mal cool) in the same manner though.

Well, I'm sure we all remember (well, maybe not some of the younger members) the hippy movement which somehow was also linked to the jazz scene, and the use of "cool" to describe something particularly good, often music. There were drug-related connotations as well, weren't there.

What goes round comes round, and it's back, but with a much more generic approbative meaning - if I ask one of our analysts or progrmmers to do something, they'll often reply, "Okay, that's cool."

I grit my teeth every time I hear it. It's up there with "no probs" meaning "that's fine"!

I grit my teeth every time I hear it. It's up there with "no probs" meaning "that's fine"!

Now, CapK, it's not cool to be dissing the peeps who say no probs. Give them their props, eh?

Loki Quordlepleen

My early acquaintance with the word was when I first worked with professional musicians. They used the word "cool" when a musician had done a difficult, perfectly executed solo without breaking a sweat.
Subsequently I heard "cool" used for performances that went especially well. I'm talking the early 1940s. I was particularly pleased when a jazz group, appearing after my performance in a variety show, told me my "Bell Song" from Lakme was "Cool!"
Perhaps it was used before that but that's when I heard it.
wow

"grit my teeth every time I hear it. It's up there with "no probs" meaning "that's fine"! "

around these parts, 'cool' has never lost its cool, provided it's not overrused. I think it's most often used as a replacement for 'neat' (as in "You got a promotion?? COOL!").

As for "no probs".... that would sound pretty strange here, though "No problem" is quite prevalant. What we say in that context is "no worries", which for some reason i always thought came from that side of the pond, no??

Forgive the repetition, but the concept must be an old one. Surely there must have been phrases for it much earlier than any of the replies so far. How about the Brit term "bounder"? I have the impression it referred in the beginning to someone who was inappropriately enthusiastic, and thus "uncool". What do you say, maverick and RhubarbCommando?

>...the concept must be an old one.

indeed, with many related shadings.

1602 Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle coole patience. -Hamlet

1855 While she wept, and I strove to be cool. -Tennyson

1947 (record by Charlie Parker Quartet, Dial 1015) Cool Blues.

1959 Observer They got long, sloppy haircuts and wide knot ties and no-press suits with fat lapels. Very cool.

by the way, CK, don't confuse the hippies with the beats; it was the latter who are associated with cool jazz.

afterthought: Maynard G. Krebs was a beatnik, not a hippy!

In Urbino, Italy, between 1444 and 1482, there was a civilization so perfected that there was a PBS TV documentary on it almost twenty years ago.
Somewhere I read that in their tournaments, the swordsman most highly regarded was the one who could win with the least apparent exertion. Surely a demonstration for "cool" even if the word for it was not given.

Ah well, the confusion between beatniks, hippies and 1940s jazz is to be expected as I've never really studied any of those phenomena in any depth. Mea culpa. The fact is, however, that the word "cool" is NOT one of my favourite usages.

tsuwm said afterthought: Maynard G. Krebs was a beatnik, not a hippy!

And (to move to far safer ground) John Maynard Keynes was an economist, not a beatnik!

I can understand the annoyance with the word "cool" but let's hear some more about the concept. For instance, the tobacco ads all want young people to think smoking is "cool". Let's hear some analysis of how they convey this concept.

well, the most blatantly obvious is "Kool" brand cigs, supposedly so-named because of mentholation, but we know better.

don't confuse the hippies with the beats; it was the latter who are associated with cool jazz.

au contraire, mein freund, the beatnik look with the beret and goatee was first popularized by Dizzy Gillespie, who was the big name in bebop, or hot jazz. Cool jazz didn't come around until Miles Davis, who didn't like playing music at break-neck speeds, formed a group and cut the album Birth of the Cool. Beatniks were originally worshippers of bebop, which is the exact opposite of cool jazz.

For instance, the tobacco ads all want young people to think smoking is "cool". Let's hear some analysis of how they convey this concept.

They don't. It's illegal. The 1998 Tobacco Settlement outlawed cigarette advertizing on billboards, anywhere near schools or in magazines associated with children. They're also not allowed to use cartoon characters like that stupid camel anymore to market to children.

Charlie Parker's "Cool Blues" anticipated Miles by about two years. it's all in the semantics: "1950 Christian Sci. Monitor 8 Feb. 15 Bop is ‘cool’ jazz in contrast to the ‘hot’ variety of the swing or Dixieland schools."

Charlie Parker's "Cool Blues" anticipated Miles by about two years.

But what Charlie Parker played is by no means considered Cool Jazz according to the definition of the genre.

Cool Jazz according to the definition of the genre.

OK, JazzO, while your toiling away at your studies (ahem!) could you LIU and give the definition of cool jazz versus hot jazz as genres?
wow

OK, JazzO, while your toiling away at your studies (ahem!) could you LIU and give the definition of cool jazz versus hot jazz as genres?

Well, hot jazz (Bebop) is the fast-paced, fit-in-as-many-notes-as-possible-in-the-shortest-amount-of-time music. Most people don't like bebop because it's just kind of hard to listen to. Swing fans were appalled by bebop.
"Bebop has set music back twenty years" - Tommy Dorsey
"That's got nothing to do with jazz. That's Chinese music" - Louis Armstrong

Cool jazz came as a direct opposite to bebop because Miles Davis knew that he couldn't continue to try to play "faster, higher and hotter". He originally played with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie but just couldn't keep up so he started using a much slower, more melodic style. The Birth of the Cool "was an ethereal, drifting music that used French horns, complex arrangements and delicately woven solos." Miles decided that he would play "lower, slower and cooler" than anyone else.

Is that sufficient?

(Quotes from Jazz for Beginners by Ron David)

And what do you mean by "studies (ahem!)"? It's Saturday.

One last time. Suppose an extra-terrestrial joined this board, how would you define cool to him?

jazzo, (who's living up to his nom de guerre) I can agree with you that cool jazz to most musicians and students denotes the understated, behind-the-beat style typified by the arrangements and soloists on the Davis records. but the keyword (as always) is "most". the Bird thought his Blues were Cool. me too.

Sod the jazz. Let's hear some efforts at defining cool to ET.

the Bird thought his Blues were Cool. me too.

I agree.

as he hurdles into addiction!

Congratulations on having been newly debauched, JazzO. AWAD is a great jones to have, no?

Dear Jazzoctopus: Congratulations. And please realize my unkind comment on music criticism must not be misinterpreted as a personal affront to you.
How about you offering a definition of the CONCEPT to ET?

Regarding your request for a definition of cool. Here is the "official" word from the OED (Note: some of the earlier quotes might not appear right because they are not translated to modern English letters). The first definition is the emotional state, the second refers to jazz, while the third is the "neat" definition.

4. a. Of persons (and their actions): Not heated by passion or emotion; unexcited, dispassionate; deliberate, not hasty; undisturbed, calm.

Beowulf 282 And þa cear wylmas colran wurdað. c1440 Chaucer's L.G.W. (MS. Gg. 4. 27) 258 Thow+thynkist in thyn wit that is ful cole That he nys but a verray propre fole That louyth paramouris to harde and hote. 1570 Levins Manip. 161 Coole, quietus. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. v. i. 6 Such seething braines+that apprehend More than coole reason euer comprehends. 1611 Bible Prov. xvii. 27 A man of vnderstanding is of an excellent [marg. coole] spirit. 1716–8 Lady M. W. Montague Lett. xxii. 69 Upon cooler reflexion, I think I had done better to have left it alone. 1736 Butler Anal. ii. vii. 376 Some of them were men of the coolest tempers. 1798 Miller in Nicolas Disp. Nelson VII. clviii, I caused a cool and steady fire to be opened on them. 1848 Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 491 The energy of the young prince had not then been found a match for the cool science of the veteran. 1855 Tennyson Maud ii. i, While she wept, and I strove to be cool.

d. Applied to jazz music: restrained or relaxed in style; also applied to the performer; opp. hot a. orig. U.S.

1947 (record by Charlie Parker Quartet, Dial 1015) Cool Blues. 1948 Life 11 Oct. 138 Bebop: New Jazz School is Led by Trumpeter Who is Hot, Cool and Gone. 1950 Christian Sci. Monitor 8 Feb. 15 Bop is ‘cool’ jazz in contrast to the ‘hot’ variety of the swing or Dixieland schools. 1953 Melody Maker 9 May 5 Hot and cool—you've got to hear the lot. 1955 L. Feather Encycl. Jazz (1956) 30 Cool jazz to most musicians and students denotes the understated, behind-the-beat style typified by the arrangements and soloists on the Davis records. 1957 H. Panassié in S. Traill Concerning Jazz 61 The ‘cool’ musicians+stopped using the traditional jazz technique and tone. 1962 J. Wain Strike Father Dead iv. 204 The new developments which were to become first bebop and then just bop and finally cool jazz.

e. Hence, characteristic of those who favour ‘cool’ music; relaxed; unemotional; also used loosely as a general term of approval; cool cat: see cat n.1 2c. colloq. (orig. U.S.).

1948 New Yorker 3 July 28 The bebop people have a language of their own.+ Their expressions of approval include ‘cool’! 1953 Time 14 Sept. 68/3 The latest Tin Pan Alley argot, where ‘cool’ means good, ‘crazy’ means wonderful. 1955 N.Y. Times 22 May vi. 19/2 Maybe it's all these new buildings breeding more of these cool Brooks Brothers cats. 1955 Sci. News Let. 1 Oct. 221/2 This is not cool chatter between some young hep-cats in a smoke-filled jazz joint. 1957 Sunday Mail (Glasgow) 10 Feb. 11 Gone—the best, in the top rung, the coolest. 1958 Observer 23 Nov. 16/3 On one side was the frenetic+bumptiousness of the rock-'n'-rollers, on the other the calculated indifference of the cool cats. 1959 Ibid. 25 Oct. 29/8 They got long, sloppy haircuts and wide knot ties and no-press suits with fat lapels. Very cool.

Well, I don't know about all of THAT, but my cool 83-year-old mother uses the word cool and thinks it's a cool word!

On a local note: ALL Israeli men seem to think themselves to be cool - they aren't, but no one dares tell them so!

Shoshannah

BTW - Rouspeteur - welcome to the board! Your profile gives NO information, so I guess we'll have to figure you out from your postings!

Rouspeteur .
Enlightening ... seems my experience learning it thru musicians is right in line.
Cool.
wow

Dear Rouspeteur: blessings on you, this is the sort of thing I was looking for. The only part I am not sure of is
keeping track of the negatives in:

Chaucer's L.G.W. (MS. Gg. 4. 27) 258 Thow+thynkist in thyn wit that is ful cole That he nys but a verray propre fole That louyth paramouris to harde and hote

Only a complete cad would think it desirable to be cool in that connection (sic) Bill Hunt

Now that I know about the profiles I dutifully filled my out!

>...profiles... I dutifully filled my out<

Good man, Yourself!
And welcome ... hang in there with us. We need you. You and Musick should sing some interesting songs together!

Oh, Rouspeteur, check out Information and Announcements category for some FAQs for Strangers and Newbies. Our jmh has done a great job there.
Aloha
wow

Allow me to submit a classic usage of "cool"

A Coney island of the Mind - No. 5 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Sometime during eternity
some guys show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad

And moreover
he adds
It's all writ down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won't even find
for a couple thousand years or so
or at least for
nineteen hundred and fortyseven
of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me
for that matter

You're hot
they tell him
And they cool him
They stretch him on the Tree to cool

And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is the king cat
who's got to blow
or they can't quite make it

Only he don't come down
from His Tree

Him just hang there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
from the usual unreliable sources
real dead