State of Youth Slang In France

[Wilson Gray]

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
>Subject:      Re: State of Youth Slang In France
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>
>On Mar 19, 2005, at 21:51, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>  Does anyone remember the movie filmed in NYC,
>>  "Kids," from ca. 1995? There is a scene in which
>>  the protagonist says to his friend, "Nigger, what
>>  you doin' lookin' at my mama tittie?" The people
>>  who appear in this scene are all white.
>
>I recently saw and heard three young Latinas on the NYC subway,
>outbound from Manhattan, refer to each other as "son." Odd enough to
>hear 13-year-old Dominican boys say it to each other (as you can
>witness on the NYC baseball fields almost any Summer weekend day), but
>between girls?
>
>Grant Barrett
>gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

When I was a kid in Texas, ca.1947-48, it was common for black boys
to address one another as "son." Sometimes, the boy so addressed
would take pretended umbrage. In such a case, the first boy would
reply, "I don't call you 'sun' because you shine; I call you 'son'
because you mine." I.e. "I'm yo' daddy. And how did I come to be yo'
daddy? Why, by fuckin' yo' mama."

IMO, this throws some light on the origin of the current rhetorical
question, "Who('s) yo' daddy?"

-Wilson Gray