"throw down" redux

[neil]

And with a sexual connotation from the '90s (in an erotic comic found on the
internet, hence lack of publishing info):

'Lots of guys with big dicks can't fuck. But Blue was twice blessed. Shit,
that boy can throw down!'
- Kevin J. Taylor, 'Stud: The Legend of Boy Blue', 1997

--Neil Crawford


> From: Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:35:39 -0400
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: "throw down" redux
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      "throw down" redux
>
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>
> Here's a belated follow-up to a thread from two years ago, where Orin
> Hargraves asked about the expression "throw (it) down" meaning
> 'perform admirably':
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0504A&L=ADS-L&P=33117
>
> In the thread I mentioned that intransitive "throw down" has been used
> in rap circles since Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1979), the
> full version of which uses the expression three times (e.g., "Now I
> got a man comin' on right now, He's guaranteed to throw down").
>
> Below are cites from the '80s for intransitive and transitive "throw
> down" in the performance sense. The 1980 cite refers to "Rapper's
> Delight" and quotes Henry Jackson, aka Big Bank Hank.
>
> * throw down, v. intr. (to/on/over a backing track or beat)
>
> 1980 _Washington Post_ 31 Aug. G2/5 The group took the musical track
> from a top-10 hit by Chic called "Good Times" and "We threw down most
> violently on it," Jackson says, meaning that they rapped over the
> music.
>
> 1984 _Washington Post_ 30 Aug. C4/2 Whether bouncing happily through
> "Junku," which was brightened by Foday Nusa Suso's shimmering kora, or
> throwing down to the surging electrofunk pulse of "Rockit," which was
> introduced by a rap from scratch master D. St., Hancock and the band
> were stimulating.
>
> * throw down, v. trans.
>
> 1986 _Globe and Mail_ 10 Apr. D1 (Factiva) The first few minutes were
> brash and exciting, as the three deejays leapt about throwing down
> streams of rhymes and imprecations to the crowd to get involved.
>
> 1988 _Los Angeles Times_ 7 Aug. 37 (ProQuest) "A Glossary of, Like,
> Contemporary Terms" Throw down a rap - begin rapping.
>
>
> -- Ben Zimmer
>
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