Judicial ruling on "hoe" vs. "ho"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

This one has been making its way around the blawgosphere.  From a recent
opinion by Judge Terence T. Evans of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit:

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http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/IH0U8QDM.pdf
http://www.instantmessinger.net/blog/archives/2005_U_S_App_LEXIS_7695.doc-2.RTF

U.S. v. Murphy and Baker, Nos. 04-2032, 04-2293 & 04-2309, 2005 U.S. App.
LEXIS 7695.

We begin with the facts. Pamela Hayden agreed to become an informant for
local law enforcement after being arrested on drug charges. In December of
2002, she made two controlled purchases of crack cocaine from Darron
Murphy, Jr., which led to his arrest.

On the evening of May 29, 2003, Hayden was smoking crack with three other
folks at a trailer park home on Chain of Rocks Road in Granite City,
Illinois. Murphy, Sr., who had sold drugs to Hayden several years earlier,
showed up later that night. He was friendly at first, but he soon called
Hayden a "snitch bitch hoe" n1 and hit her in the head with the back of
his hand. He said he saw her name in discovery materials from his son's
criminal case and that she was responsible for putting him in jail. He put
a gun -- a small chrome-plated one -- to her head and said he was going to
kill her for putting his son in jail. He said this would be her last night
and her body would be found in a ditch. Murphy then placed several calls,
telling Hayden he was calling his people to get someone to dispose of her
car.

n1 The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a
snitch bitch "hoe." A "hoe," of course, is a tool used for weeding and
gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps
thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden's response. We have taken the liberty
of changing "hoe" to "ho," a staple of rap music vernacular as, for
example, when Ludacris raps "You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies."
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--Ben Zimmer