Hip Hop Phrases

[Michael Quinion]

> As for its alleged Jamaican origins, as Michael Quinion notes, this
> seems to have been advanced as a theory in the new Longman's
> dictionary - and my own immediate response to that was, why do they
> believe so?

The dictionary itself gives no etymologies, so an alleged Jamaican
origin must have become associated with LDOCE through some other
source. I don't now have the publicity material, but I remember
that there were some words listed that were said to be of Caribbean
origin; "flava" is one that comes to mind. Could it be that some
journalist has misunderstood?

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>