purple drank, lean

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 9/28/06, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
[re: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Drank>]
>
> "Purple _drank_"? It's more likely to be "purple _drink_," with
> "drank" being a pronunciation spelling, ah thank.

Of course, pronunciation spellings sometimes get lexicalized as
semantically distinct from standard variants. Southern rappers have
been using "(purple) drank" to refer specifically to cough syrup
concoctions, as in Frayser Boy's "I Got Dat Drank". Lyrics here:

http://www.lyricsdir.com/frayser-boy-i-got-dat-drank-lyrics.html

Cf. our discussion last year of "stink" vs. "stank" (and note that
"stank" also has currency in Southern hiphop, at least on Outkast
albums)...

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501C&L=ADS-L&P=R14283


--Ben Zimmer

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