it pays to increase your word power...

[Wilson Gray]

This morning, I heard "bending some corners in the 'hood," for the
first time. According to the (black) speaker, this means "cruising
around an unfamiliar (black) neighborhood in hopes of coming  across
someone dealing dope."

-Wilson

On 9/7/06, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      it pays to increase your word power...
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ...but not all that much.
>
> Today's new one on me was invoked on tonight's "PTI" (Pardon the
> Interruption, a two-man sports talk TV show on ESPN).  Apparently the
> assistant coach of the Detroit Lions, a fellow who has had some
> problems handling alcohol in the past, was recently stopped and
> ticketed for the offense of...Porky Pigging.  This was defined by the
> PTI guys as "driving around naked".  But in fact, that would
> represent a widening, as it were, of the original meaning, which
> (according to both Urban Dictionary and common sense) involves more
> strictly "to drive around naked from the waist down", as in the
> eponymous innovator of the practice (well, actually, I guess Porky
> himself doesn't do much actual driving).  Evidently, based on other
> postings, the true porky pigger is expected to wear a shirt and (my
> son informs me) a fishing hat.  Or, as one site has it,
>
> ...known as "Donald Ducking" or "Porky Pigging". The "official"
> outfit is: shoes, no pants and no undies, a tie-dyed t-shirt that
> hangs just high enough to show off one's...
>
> well, you get the idea.
>
> L
>
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>


--
-Wilson
----
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

--Sam Clemens

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