bad

[Anson Olds]

I realize that now, as I read more about it.  I heard it first in an all white high school among a variety of age groups, male and female, and wondered how it began.  Friends and students clued me into the sports connection which, being TV free, I had never heard.  We are in a rural and mostly white area.  No offense was meant by my "ignorance."

Emily Olds
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>
    To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
    Date: Friday, September 03, 1999 3:15 PM
    Subject: Re: bad
    
    
    The phrase originated in African American Vernacular English, I believe, and was not intended to sound "childlike" or regressive, whatever that means.
    
    
    At 05:45 PM 9/3/99 -0700, you wrote:
    >>>>
    
        Maybe we've been around this topic and back again, but I always thought "my bad," heard in my high school from all sports team members, came from a variation on "my fault," not "my best," or "my bag," as others have suggested. When I first heard it, I assumed it was one of the variations that teenagers seem to come up with that are somewhat "childlike" in structure. I remember doing this sort of regression as a teenager, although that was so long ago I can't seem to remember examples. As I hear more and more people talk about adult sport figures using it, though, I doubt myself. Emily Olds c/o ansolds at massed.net

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