street cred (adj. 1979, n. 1982)

Mark Mandel thnidu at GMAIL.COM
Sat Sep 13 12:47:16 UTC 2008


"street cred" isn't an adj. here, unless you're willing to call "local
lad maked [sic?] good" an adj. as well. It's just an NP thrown into
that good old any-old-phrase-can-be-used-as-a-modifier slot.

m a m

On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Latest OED batch has "street cred" from 1984 as an adjective and from
> 1985 as a noun. Here's earlier for both:
>
> adj.:
> 1979 _Sounds_ 18 Aug. (Rock's Back Pages) And though one might
> reasonably question the cockney quotient of say Hudson-Ford and other
> post-Dury dropped-hatch money-spinners, Chris passes the old
> street-cred, local-lad-maked-good doodah with flying colours.
>
...
> --Ben Zimmer

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