Heard on The Judges: "It's all bad!"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Feb 10 20:35:33 UTC 2009


Early-twenties black man from Los Angeles:

[Finishing his enumeration of the consequences of having been hit by a car]:

"... and I missed my daughter's birthday party! It's all bad, your,
honor! It's all bad!"


Considering that I've been hearing "It's all good" since ca.1961, this
is the first time that I've heard anyone say, "It's all bad." Well, of
course, I've heard people say both "It's all good" and "It's all bad"
prior to 1961. This is the first time that I've heard the latter said
with the peculiar intonation pattern that tells me that I'm hearing
slang and not merely a statement of fact.

-Wilson
–––
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.
-----
-Mark Twain

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



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