'sup?

[Jonathan Lighter]

"What up?" has presumably been around for as long as there's been the phrase "What's up?" (at least since 1838: OED) and a zero-copula in AAVE (prob. for as long as there have been AAVE speakers).

JL


William Stone <W-Stone at NEIU.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: William Stone
Subject: Re: 'sup?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the northwest suburbs of Chicago, 'sup' is very much a Caucasian teen greeting. African American teens all seem to use a flapped 'whatup' and have for a while. My 15 year old has certainly been
using it for at least two years. How long has this variant of 'what's up' been around? Where did it originate?

Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> I first noticed /tsup/~/sup/ in NYC about 1970. When I came to Tennessee in 1974, it was used there as well, almost entirely by young African Americans, as in NY.
>
>


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