so-ghetto

[Tim Frazer]

Are the students Sharon mentions using "so ghetto" as kind of a negative
adj. African American or otherwise?
If not, I wonder if this is some more slang that started in AAVE and spread
to white middle class adolescents?


----- Original Message -----
From: Sharon Vaipae <lmedu at JPS.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: one-eye pull (in Japan)


> >> And what about the finger pulling down the lower
> >> eyelid?
> >
> >Mon oeil ... my eye ... same meaning of doubt or
> >skepticism as in English.
>
> During our eight years in Tochigi-ken, Niigata-ken, and Osaka-ku Japan, my
> elementary/middle school school-age children both received from and gave
it
> to
> Japanese school peers, meaning variously, "I don't care," "Who cares, so
> what," and "Baka" (you are stupid), and sometimes as a joking greeting
> between friends.  They did not know it before arriving in Japan at the
ages
> of three and five. My university students also used it occasionally with
> each other, but always laughed as though it was intended humorously.
>
> The closed rounded forefinger/thumb with remaining fingers slightly
> elevated and curled signals "money" in Japan, although my students were
> also familiar with its "O.K." U.S. meaning, as well as South American
> meaning as a substitute for the middle finger. The last learned during in
> the past ten years with the large influx of second and third-generation
> Japanese from Brazil, Peru, Columbia, etc. to fulfill
> kkk labor needs.
>
> And while I'm here:
> >At 10:35 PM 11/2/2000 -0500, "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> >wrote:
> >probably you'll even see "He's so Staten Island" somewhere ....
>
> I overheard one of my daughter's softball teammates huffily comment after
> being thrown out at first base:  "I was SO there."
>
> "Ghetto" is used by non-ghetto teens at my school as a descriptor of
anything
> that they look down upon or of which they disapprove, as in "her hair was
> so ghetto," or "I would never go to the Mall looking so ghetto." Here "so"
and
> "ghetto" are frequently played together.
>
> Warm regards, and always thoroughly correctable,
>
> Sharon Vaipae
> LMedu at jps.net
> DR High School
> Tracy, CA
>
> Sharon Vaipae           "The truth shall make you odd."
> LMedu at jps.net                          - Flannery O'Connor
> Tracy, CA
>