purple drank, lean

[Wilson Gray]

In L.A., in the '50's to '60's, at least (I haven't lived there since
1972), a favorite "drank" was cough syrup with codeine which, at that
time, AFAIK, could be acquired legally from pharmacies without a
prescription, though not from drugstores. I found nicotine and alcohol
to be sufficient unto the day, so I have no first-hand knowledge of
how to obtain "CSWC."

FWIW, another example of initial slang is "WPLJ," white port and lemon
juice, also known as "school-boy scotch."

BTW, in cases like "drank," in which there is no alternative
pronunciation available in the dialect, how do you know that the
normal pronunciation used in the dialect is lexically distinct in
meaning from the standard pronunciation? "Drank" is more like "foot,"
with the same pronunciation in the various dialects, regardless of its
meaning, "seem like to me," as the colored say.

-WIlson

On 9/28/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: purple drank, lean
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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