Ad in neo-blaxploitation movie

[Wilson Gray]

Back in the 'Fifties, I was surprised to hear a local black teen in
Saint Louis, where urban BE and not country BE is the dialect of
choice, "keep on" using the country-BE pronunciation, "mein,"
approximately [meiN], but with long and strong nasalization and not
with an actual [N], instead of the local and national standard, "man"
[maen].

In any case, while watching a BET neo-blaxploitation movie set in
South-Central Los Angeles, in the background of one scene, I saw the
following bus-bench ad:


"DOES YOU NEED YOU A LAWYER?"

"Holla At Pooh Brown"

"Local Negro(!)"

"I GITS YOU YO MONEY, _MEIN_!"


Clearly, though I didn't know it at the time, I had been hearing the
future of working-class BE. (I probably would have used the spelling,
_main_, but WTF? "Mein" works, too.)

-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