flyting and rap

[Mark Mandel]

He's quoting Bruce Jackson,
_Get Your Ass in the Water & Swim Like Me: African-American Narrative
Poetry from the Oral Tradition_
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415969972/cracksandshar-20
Here's the paragraph, pasted from John-Patrick's post:

> Another such
>    reduplicative or interruptive syllable still in use among American
>    Negro reciters today --- who do not say "toastisses," so far as I
>    know --- is "two-faceted," meaning having two faces, not two facets;
>    as quoted in Bruce Jackson's /Get Your Ass In the Water /(1974) p.
>    101: "But it's hell to learn when you have to burn for some
>    two-faceted cocaine broad."

Mark Mandel


On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And I punted the old uncle when I couldn't figure out what "sezee,"
> which I read as [si zi], meant. In an earlier thread WRT to this item,
> someone provided "says he" as though that were obvious. As I tumble
> through my seventh decade of soul, I'm still waiting to hear anyone of
> *any* race, creed, color, or sexual orientation use "says he" in real
> life. Perhaps Uncle R. could use some editing to make him easier for
> the less metropolitan of us to read.
>
> I got the old uncle's meisterstueck as a Christmas gift when I was
> about eight. When my grandmother was likewise unable to read it, I put
> the book aside and would have forgotten about it by now, were it not
> so popular among those sometimes referred to as "the other group."
>
> It's clear that "two-faceted" means "having two facets," as any fool
> can plainly see. Is this Legman's eye-dialect or someone else's? Or a
> semi-literate misspelling?
>
> -Wilson

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