Jay-Z on "bag" (v.)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From an Entertainment Weekly interview with rapper/impresario Jay-Z:

-----
http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1534551-2-4_4||750744|1_,00.html
Well, it's hard to pinpoint when they [sc. Jay-Z and Beyoncé] did get
together, given that both parties decline to even admit that they are
a couple, despite the massive evidence to the contrary. To cite just
one example, on the recent Beyoncé single ''Deja Vu,'' Jay-Z raps that
''We used to bag girls like Birkin bags/Now I bag B''; the
accompanying clip features the rapper being suggestively pawed by the
former Destiny's Child frontwoman.
Yet Jay-Z could not be more emphatic in his denial that the track
represented any kind of official ''coming out'' for the couple. ''No.
No. No. No,'' he says. '''Bag' is not having sex. To 'bag' someone is
to court them. I don't mean having sex.''
-----


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org