[Ads-l] thug

[Michael Newman]

In in-group use, the term thug has a specific meaning. It refers (or referred when I did my research about 2000) to a peer identity associated with outlaw status, ranging from selling drugs to shooting people. One of my participants was described as “a friendly thug” basically because he was not threatening and would sell weed to anyone. It overlapped with gangsta, but for at least one participant gangsta referred to being ruthlessly honest particularly as a rap artist. Nigga, of course, was a synonym for dude.

However, White kids generally avoided nigga, but not thug.



Michael Newman
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
Queens College/CUNY

mnewman at qc.cuny.edu<mailto:mnewman at qc.cuny.edu>

On Apr 29, 2015, at 8:21 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM<mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>> wrote:

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>>
Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM<mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>>
Subject:      thug
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Two persons on CNN have averred that those who looted and burned the CVS,
etc., in Baltimore, are not and must not be called "thugs."

Because "'Thugs' is the new version of the n-word."

The word they recommend is "kids."

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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