Soul talk

[Wilson Gray]

Black defendant, backing up his claim that he and his ex-wife, the
plaintiff - she divorced him after finding out that he was still
married to two other women - are "friends":

We still be conversatin'.

It's weird to hear people seriously using such forms. When I was a
teener, we used to make up forms like this in self-mockery or
semi-seriously as a way of having "stronger conversation" - a better
line - than other studs. Chicks think it's cute when you can make up
new words or use old words differently on the fly. "He makes me
laugh!" Right? Those who watched "In Living Color" may recall that
Damon Wayans, in his persona as the black-militant convict, was a past
master of this kind of thing. His line, "Colostomy, if dash yo bag,"
still cracks me up, after a dozen years.

Old Reader's Digest joke: "I'm descended from a long line that my
mother once listened to."

-Wilson

--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org