The Last "Mohican"?

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 03:40:55PM -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> HDAS cites "Rapper's Delight" from 1979: "Drive off in a def OJ." The OED
> draft entry chooses to transcribe the line as "death OJ" and puts the cite
> in brackets.

Ben, the use of the word "choose" here suggests that it was an
arbitrary decision. In fact, as OED explains in its
etymological note:

---
The form in quot. 1979 is often interpreted as being a use of
DEF a., and is in fact spelt _def_ in many later transcriptions
of the song, including that in L. A. Stanley _Rap: the Lyrics_
(1992). However, in the original published lyrics, the word is
spelt _death_, although the pronunciation on the recording
itself is indistinct.
---

If the original published lyrics had had "def", the quotation
would be unbracketed.

Jesse Sheidlower