A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from August 14, 2007
Jevver (did you ever)

“Jevver” (“did you ever?”) is said to be a part of Texas speech. Indiana’s Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley used “jevver” as early as the 1890s.
 
     
Urban Dictionary
Jevver 
A southern phrase for “Did you ever?”
Jevver skip school on Friday?
by Richard Black Mar 28, 2005
 
Onewed’s Wedding Chat
CindySue
06-06-2006, 04:14 PM
How Yawta Tawk in Texas
(...)
JEVVER – A Texanized contraction for “did you ever”.
   
Google Books
Rhymes of Childhood
by James Whitcomb Riley
Indianapolis: The Bowen-Merrill Company
1892
Pg. 73:
Jevver hear sich talk as that?
 
Google Books
A Guest at the Ludlow, and other stories
by Bill Ney
Indianapolis: The Bowen-Merill Company
1897
Pg. 268:
Jumbles like “jevver” for “did you ever?” and the like can hardly be spelled otherwise than phonetically, but a glossary should be appended as in Lowell’s “Bigelow Papers,” for the poems are eminently worth even lexicon-thumbing.
[The Ambrosia of James Whitcomb Riley—ed.]
   
This Dog’ll Really Hunt:
An Entertaining and Informative Texas Dictionary
by Wallace O. Chariton
Plano, TX: Republic of Texas Press
1999
Pg. 78:
Did you ever: jevver, pronounced as one word in Texas.

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Tuesday, August 14, 2007 • Permalink


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