Teen slang/hip-hop lingo in the mainstream

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:49 PM -0500 3/31/03, Paul McFedries wrote:
>"Bling-bling" is defined in the Shorter Oxford as "(the wearing of)
>expensive designer clothing and flashy jewellery." If I were to define this
>term, I'd put the "flashy jewellery" first because the wearing of oodles of
>gaudy rings, necklaces, and other expensive trinkets is central to the
>meaning of bling-bling, much more so than "expensive designer clothing."
>
>Paul
>
Aha.  Thanks.  As it turns out, I was wrong.  My colleague at Brown
reminds me that their spamscanner actually uses "pling-pling" and not
"bling-bling" to critique the penile enlargement spam ads.  Given the
gloss above, this was not a valid example of mainstreaming of hip-hop
language, even if we posited a devoicing assimilation of /b/ to /p/.
Sorry about that.  For penance, give up my usual bling-bling for the
remainder of the week.

Larry