OT: No, I'm not funning with Wilson -- (Thanks)

[Gerald Cohen]

Thanks, W. 

G.

On 6/27/09 7:37 PM, "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Ain't dat a bitch, G? Because the fact that I fully understood your
> question is precisely what made me feel that you were just having fun
> with me! I tend to forget that our individual experiences of life are
> *individual*! My thought was that, given that you know as much about
> this question as I do, your asking it of me is some joke whose point
> evades me.
> 
> IAC, this is merely an extension of that "bad means good" thing. A man
> who would rape his own mother - since mothers are stereotypically
> good, she naturally wouldn't be cooperating in this despicable act -
> is as morally bad as you can get. Therefore, something that's a
> motherfucker is among the best, if not *the* best, that there is.
> 
> Of course, it all depends upon context, since the words retain their
> full negative import. If I say,
> 
> "Damn, G! That's a *motherfucker*!"
> 
> are we discussing the fact that Oxford is granting you an honorary
> doctorate? Or are we discussing the fact that a member of your family
> has been killed as the result of friendly fire in Iran? Of course, I
> wouldn't react with those words in either case, being too boojie for
> that kind of out-of-social-context crudity, but my point is clear.
> 
> OT. There was a TV ad for Jeopardy in which there's a white guy
> dressed in a costume that resembles an alphabet-block "G" and a black
> guy dressed in a kind of elongated alphabet block with the word
> "MONEY" on it. As they fall into step, the white guy rhetorically asks
> something like, "Hiya doin', Money?" and the black guy rhetorically
> asks in reply, "What up, G [= 'gangsta']?"
> 
> What up, G?
> -Money
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 10:54 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard<gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â OT: No, Â I'm not funning with Wilson
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>> 
>> This is 99% off-topic. --- Wilson is certain I'm funning with him, and
>> the more I assure him I'm not, the more  certain he is that I am.  I was
>> merely intrigued by his use (and not just his, of course) of the term
>> "muthafukka" to indicate something truly excellent. And in all
>> seriousness I was wondering how this semantic development occurred.
>> 
>>  Anyway (and this is the OT) part. I've been told I bear some
>> resemblance to Woody Allen, and for a while I wore glasses which by
>> chance were identical to his.  In 1992 I was walking along 59th Street
>> in NYC (this was about the time that the Woody Allen and Soon-Yi scandal
>> was getting a big play in the newspapers), and a park attendant coming
>> from the other direction saw me and said (absolutely no joking here):
>> "Woody Allen, get the hell out of here."  I just walked on without
>> saying anything.
>> 
>> On a lighter note in this vein, every morning I bought the NY Times
>> at the corner newspaper stand on 57th Street, and the fellow who worked
>> there was certain that I was Woody Allen.  And the more I told him I
>> wasn't, the more certain he was that I was joshing him. This went on
>> every day for several months.
>> 
>>  So one of the lessons I've learned in life is that when someone is
>> certain he's being joshed, denials will be taken as additional evidence
>> that joshing really is going on.  So to Wilson (aka W., aka "Money"--and
>> Wilson is free to explain how he got this nickname), I say: Okay, I
>> really was funning with you.
>> 
>>  (But actually I wasn't).
>> 
>> G. 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> 
>> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray
>> Sent: Sat 6/27/2009 1:05 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Jenny Agutter (was went walkabout ) (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>> ------
>> 
>> Admit it, G. You're funning with me!
>> 
>> -W
>> 
>> On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard<gcohen at mst.edu> =
>> wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header =
>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster: Â "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
>>> Subject: Â Re: Jenny Agutter (was went walkabout ) (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>> =
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>> ------
>>> 
>>> No I wasn't messing with Wilson. Â I was just wondering how the French =
>> 
>>> term he used could have acquired the meaning "something really
>>> excellent." I know that Wilson didn't invent the term or its varied
>> 
>>> usage.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, please consider my question merely musing. =3D20
>>> 
>>> G.
>>> 
>>> ________________________________
>>> 
>>> Message from Wilson Gray, Thu 6/25/2009 9:02 PM
>>> 
>>> G, I don't think that total command of the dialect is required. Of
>>> course, I could very well be leaping to an unwarranted conclusion. You
>>> never know. Or are you just messing with me?
>>> 
>>> <snip>
>>> 
>>> -Wilson
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard<gcohen at mst.edu> =
>> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> =
>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>  <snip>
>>>>  That movie is - if y'all will pahdn ma Fraynch - a muthafukka!
>>> 
>>>> And how does this French term describe something favorable?
>>>> 
>>>> Gerald Cohen
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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>>

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