Re: OT Humour - Written & Spoken English

"Carolyn McCarty" <cxm7521@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:133tahusrb0168a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
: I'm with you, Cheryl! And while we're at it, who's the
(pardon my language,
: please! but it's a common word in American English now)
dip*** who
: initiated the expression, "My bad." Can we hang that
individual from the
: yardarm?

"CATS" <CATS@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:463eb837$1_4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Come the revolution . . . . . I have a lamp post picked out
with his/her name on it!!


.......and I've got the rope and KNOW how to tie the knot! That "my bad"
grammatical atrocity just jacks my jaw.

Val

I checked out my favorite slang word/phrase origin site.......read on if
you're interested.

"My bad"

Meaning: My mistake - I'm to blame.

Origin

This slang term originated in about 1970. At that time, i.e. pre the
widespread use of the Internet, slang terms often circulated at street level
for many years before being adopted by anyone who felt inclined to write
them down. That's clearly not the case any longer of course and any word or
phrase that is widely known is dateable quite precisely via website logs.

The first citation in print is C. Wielgus and A. Wolff's, 'Back-in-your-face
Guide to Pick-up Basketball', 1986:

"My bad, an expression of contrition uttered after making a bad pass or
missing an opponent."

Shakespeare used the term with something like the current meaning, in his
Sonnet 112:

Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

That's clearly just coincidence, and it's hardly surprising that such a
fragmentary phrase would appear in a large body of work like Shakespeare's.
It's also a world away from pick-up basketball, which is an informal street
sport where players frequently call out to each other (trash talking), and
is a well-known source of street lang.

'My bad' came into widespread popular use in the mid to late-1990s in the
USA via the 1995 movie ?Clueless?. This starred Alicia Silverstone and
contains what seems to have been the first use of the phrase in the
mainstream media. The 1994 'Green revision pages' for the movie script has a
scene with the Alicia Sliverstone character learning to drive:

"Cher swerves - to avoid killing a person on a bicycle. Cher: Whoops, my
bad."

Although a street term, it is virtually synonymous with the earlier Latin
phrase, 'mea culpa'. It doubtless has as little of a direct descent from
this as it does from Shakespeare's Sonnet 112.




"CATS" <CATS@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:463eb837$1_4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Come the revolution . . . . . I have a lamp post picked out
with his/her name on it!!

--

Cheryl & the Cats in OZ
o o o o o o
( > Y < ) ( > Y < ) and ( > Y < )
Boofhead Donut Rasputin
http://community.webshots.com/user/witchofthewest
catsatararatATyahooDOTcomDOTau


:
: --
: Carolyn in The Old Pueblo
:
: If it ain't broke, you're not trying. --Red Green
: If it ain't broke, it ain't mine. --Carolyn McCarty
:
: If at first you don't succeed, switch to power
ools. --Red Green
: If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger
ammer. --Carolyn McCarty
:
: "CATS" <CATS@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
: news:463e7f66$1_4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
: > Ah hah! The British (Norman/French) influence.
Australia
: > has it too, although these days sadly the shorter
: > Americanised spellings seem to be taking over. A
failing of
: > our education system in my opinion.
: >
: > I cringe when I see what texting is doing to the written
: > language though. I do believe that language is a
dynamic
: > force and is subject to constant change and innovation,
: > t -
: >
: > i h8 txt words + h8 cing it in ltrs + emls
: > cul8r
: >
: > (Aaahhhhhhhh!! runs screaming off in the distance!)
: > --
: >
: > Cheryl & the Cats in OZ
: > o o o o o o
: > ( > Y < ) ( > Y < ) and ( > Y < )
: > Boofhead Donut Rasputin
: > http://community.webshots.com/user/witchofthewest
: > catsatararatATyahooDOTcomDOTau
: >
: >
: > "~KK in BC~" <koffeekupz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
: > news:Vqu%h.22194$KN6.12426@xxxxxxxxxxx
: > :> If you can pronounce correctly every word in this
poem,
: > you
: > : > will be speaking English better than 90% of the
native
: > : > English speakers in the world. After trying the
verses,
: > a
: > : > Frenchman said he'd prefer six months of hard labour
to
: > : > reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
: > : >
: > : >
: > :
: > :
: > : I find the biggest difference between the
pronunciations
: > of words come
: > : between the USA and Canadian versions because of
spelling
: > for the most part.
: > :
: > : We add letters in some words like: honour, neighbour
and
: > colour for example.
: > :
: > : ~KK in BC~
: > :
: > :
: >
: >
:
:




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