"money" as AAVE quasi-pronoun?

[Margaret Lee]

"Girlfriend was lookin' good!"
"The brotha was fine!"

--- Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:
> In HDAS, under _money_ 'friend (in direct address)'
> (e.g.
> "Yo, money, whassup?"), we have two examples where
> this
> _money_ is functioning as a quasi-pronoun: "Money
> [i.e. 'he'] can rap" and "Leave money [i.e. 'him']
> alone".
>
> I have a vague sense that I've encountered this
> elsewhere, or
> that it is at least slightly common, but I can't
> find any
> additional examples. Parallel examples with other
> AAVE
> direct-address terms sound plausible to my ear (e.g.
> "Homes was doin' great!" (invented ex.)), but I
> can't find
> evidence for them either.
>
> Is anyone familiar with this usage--preferably with
> examples, but at least able to confirm or refute my
> suspicion that the construction has at least some
> currency? Is this construction or parallels used
> in any other way?
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED


=====
Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - English and Linguistics
& University Editor
Department of English
Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668
757-727-5769 (voice);757-727-5421 (fax);757-851-5773(home)
e-mail:  mlee303 at yahoo.com   or   margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu

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