FWIW, Dave Chappelle defined one meaning of "ghetto" as the modern
equivalent of "nigger-rich." His definition had to do with a person
who puts his freedom and even his life into jeopardy selling narcotics
in order to obtain huge lootie-bonds, which he then uses to buy an
Escalade or whatever the hippest pimpmobile is, while continuing to
live iin the projects.
-Wilson
On 5/1/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject: Re: Ghetto/nigger-rig
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I first encountered _ghetto_, adj., on a student slang last way back in 1997. It was defined, in typically vague undergrad fashion, as "something bad."
>
> _Scary Movie 2_ (2001) includes the line, "Some people is so ghetto !" That was also the year I began to hear it on the Springer show, used almost exclusively by black guests.
>
> A preliminary definition might be, "exemplifying stereotypical, lower-class black attitudes, tastes, or behavior; (_chiefly in African- American contexts_) meretricious; unsophisticated; crude."
>
> JL
> Doug Harris <cats22 at FRONTIERNET.NET> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Doug Harris
> Subject: Re: Ghetto/nigger-rig
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Beyond being offensive, such terms as nigger-rig are, IMHO, more
> than a wee bit ironic, too:
> If that term is supposed to mean something has been made to "just
> barely work", it could be imagined that the fixer had, at the VERY
> least, the git-up-and-go to get (whatever) working AGAIN, even if
> not quite to designed-for standards.
> And truth be told, the person who caused (whatever) to be dysfunctional
> more'n likely was a chromatically disadvantaged person, as I am.
> --
> And I'm curious as to who uses the term 'reggin'. That sounds like a
> construction that might have been arrived at by a rapper.
> (the other) doug
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Wilson Gray
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 1:50 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Ghetto/nigger-rig
>
>
>
> Hasn't it been proclaimed that racism is dead? New formations such as
> "niggerbox" for boombox and "nigger-rig" as a replacement for
> "jury-rig," as well as pswaydo-euphemisms like "reggin ("nigger"
> spelled backward) weed" for low-quality grass make the 21st-century
> appear to be only numerically distinct from the 20th.
>
> -Wilson
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
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-Sam'l Clemens
------
The tongue has no bones, yet it breaks bones.
Rumanian proverb
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