righteous

[Jonathan Lighter]

Dunno about black usage, but "brother" between white guys has been around a long time.  Like, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (Harburg & Gorney, 1932).

  Surely you're not suggesting that publicity-crazed pop entertainers would make up a story like this, or endorse a publicist's, er, "white" lie ?

  I yam mawtified !

  JL
Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: righteous
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 1/7/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: righteous
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dan Burley's got it too, in 1944. Maybe Ben can dig an earlier one out of the _Defender_.
>
> Wilson : as you well know, they got their name from the cat who commented,
> "Righteous, brother ! " after (or maybe during) a song. He meant "great, splendid, the real thing, deeply satisfying" rather than "of white people"...one hopes.
>
> Even in "righteous moss" the word can be easily construed to mean "good" (cf. "good hair").
>
> JL
>

You are correct, Jon. I do know the *story,* all too well, and I've
been pissed off about it ever since I read the first version of this
bullshit claim in the Los Angeles Times decades ago. I consider it to
be so totally devoid of content as to constitute an insult to black
Americans. I.e. At the time that the RB's put out this story, no black
person would have referred to a white man as "brother." That usage was
still totally in-group, in those days, and not necessarily by choice.

I'm sorry. Perhaps I need to point out that, in the originaI version
of the story, it was specifically stated that said cat was black. It's
like Bill Haley of "and the Comets" fame claiming to have invented the
phrase, "rock and roll." Utter balderdash, I say! Do you remember the
time that black singer Irma Thomas, opening for the Stones in London,
was nearly hooted off the stage for doing the Stones' "Time Is On My
Side," despite the fact that Thomas's original recording of this song
predates the British Invasion? Do you remember the Chordettes and
their hit cover of the song, "Lollipop"? It became their hit when
there turned out to no way that Ronald & Ruby, who wrote and recorded
the original version, could be marketed to the white-American public
of the '50's, given that Ronald was a black male and Ruby was a white
female.

To paraphrase Led Zeppelin, "Does anybody remember segregation?" At
the time that the RB's put out this jive story, they had never played
a venue that was open to blacks and I'm not certain that they ever
did. Why would they have bothered? "If you white, you right," to coin
;-) a phrase. Changing the law doesn't change the custom. Of course,
"time brings about a change," to borrow the title of an old song. Dave
Chappelle regularly goes to what, a few years ago, would have been the
once-unthinkable extreme of publicly referring to *anyone,"
irregardless ;-) of race, creed, or color, as "nigger." (Oddly enough,
I find this to be quite refreshing.)

As for your second observation, let me paraphrase a quotation from the
oeuvre of Ike Turner: "That was precisely my point from the verrih
bigginnin!"

-Wilson

P.S. To speak ill of the dead, in L.A.'s black community, Lou Rawls
was as well-known for his pimp-like physical abuse of women as he was
for his singing. -W


> Wilson Gray wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: righteous
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 1/7/06, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower
> > Subject: Re: righteous
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 07, 2006 at 12:40:38AM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote:
> > >
> > > Fritz, surely you haven't forgotten the BE slang use, dating back to
> > > only God knows when, of "righteous" as a term meaning, "typical of
> > > white people," as in "righteous moss," a head of hair naturally like
> > > unto the hair of white people? ;-) When the Afro became hip, beauty
> > > parlors that had formerly sustained themselves straighening
> > > "naturally-curly" hair stayed in business curling the hair of chicks
> > > thitherto "blessed" with righteous moss.
> >
> > OED cites this back to Zora Neale Hurston in 1942.
> >
> > Jesse Sheidlower
> > OED
> >
>
> It's nice that someone besides God knows. :-) Thanks, Jesse!
>
> -Wilson
>
>
>
>
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