use of "my bad"

Fri May 29 14:39:11 UTC 2009

Sorry. The correct date of Wielgus & Wolff's _In-Your-Face [sic] Basketball
Book_ is 1980, not 1986.

JL

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: use of "my bad"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here's possibly the first time it was discussed in the mainstream
> media, in a syndicated 1997 column by Bob Greene.
>
> LH
> ==================================
> If you heard this phrase here first ...
> By Bob Greene
>
> ATLANTA -- It was the second time in two days I had heard the phrase.
>
> This time I was walking through the airport here, and as another
> traveler and I were heading toward a boarding gate we bumped into
> each other.
>
> The man stepped back and, with an apologetic expression on his face,
> said to me:
>
> "My bad."
>
> As I say -- the second time in two days I had heard it. And both
> times, it clearly meant what the man in the airport -- a young
> businessman-type -- intended it to mean. "My fault." Or "Excuse me."
> But the phrase was "My bad."
>
> I would have assumed the guy was for some reason talking baby talk,
> or maybe he was a European who did not have a fluent command of
> English. But because this was the second "My bad" I had heard, I
> sensed a new phrase might be getting ready to creep into the language.
>
> It struck me as a rather juvenile thing to say: "My bad," as if to
> get across, "I have done a bad thing." I got in touch with a
> linguistics expert I had consulted before on a situation like this --
> professor William Labov of the University of Pennsylvania -- and he
> said: "My bad? That's a new one on me. You have to have your ear to
> the ground all the time on these things. I'll look into it."
>
> Professor Labov said "My bad" sounded like a Southern construction to
> him, and referred me to another leading linguistics academician,
> professor Guy Bailey of the University of Texas at San Antonio. He
> hadn't heard of it, either. "My bad?" he said. "I don't know that
> one."
>
> Professor Larry Horn at Yale University did know it. "It doesn't mean
> 'Excuse me' as much as it means 'That was my fault,' or 'I'm sorry,'
> " professor Horn said.
>
> He said he was under the impression it was a slang phrase that began
> in inner-city neighborhoods -- during sports competition -- and has
> begun to enter the wider language. "It's been around for a while," he
> said. "The first time I heard it used was on ESPN SportsCenter, where
> the anchors were talking over a videotape of someone fumbling or
> making an error. The anchor said 'My bad' in a sort of funny, joking
> way.
>
> "But it wasn't intended to be a funny phrase when it was first used.
> It was a way to say 'I'm sorry' for a sports mistake, and it was
> meant seriously."
>
> Does professor Horn think "My bad" will become a regular part of English
> usage?
>
> "It's hard to tell," he said. "It's hard to predict which words or
> phrases will stick. 'Cool' is one example of a word that filled a
> need. It's been around since at least the 1940s -- it probably began
> with jazz musicians. It filled a slot no other word really filled.
> But 'My bad'? We already have 'My fault,' so I don't know if there's
> a real need for it."
>
> At Harvard University, Bert Vaux, assistant professor of linguistics,
> said his students tell him that "My bad" is already being used in
> places few would expect.
>
> "One of my students' fathers is an attorney," Vaux said, "and in his
> law firm, some of the young lawyers are using 'My bad' in a serious,
> straightforward way."
>
> So you've got a phrase that may or may not have begun on inner city
> sports fields, now being used by business travelers in airports and
> attorneys in big law firms. "I don't understand the socio-linguistic
> situation with businessmen," Vaux said. "But I do think that this
> did, indeed, begin in urban centers among young men playing sports.
> You would typically hear it if a person made a bad pass or something.
> He'd say 'My bad' -- he'd be telling his teammates that he knew it
> was his fault."
>
> It's not the most grown-up phrase you can think of -- the thought of
> millions of people going around saying 'My bad' to each other is an
> odd one -- but there's no way to know just yet if 'My bad' will
> quickly fade away, or will be with us for years and years.
>
> "Words are like any fashion item," said Yale's professor Horn. "If
> kids from one group start to wear their pants baggy and low, other
> people who would not usually do it may do it, and spread the look.
> Like fashion, words and phrases go from one region of the country to
> another, from one social group to another."
>
> Didn't much like today's column, did you? My bad. ;-)
>
>
> At 8:03 AM -0500 5/29/09, Scot LaFaive wrote:
> >Never liked it. Sometime in the '90s is my first recollection of its use.
> >
> >Scot
> >
> >On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net
> >wrote:
> >
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> >>  Subject:      Re: use of "my bad"
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  I first heard it when my son used it as a middle school student in the
> >>  mid-1980s.  still used, esp. by ballplayers, after an error or misplay.
> >>
> >>
> >>  Bill Palmer
> >>
> >>  ----- Original Message -----
> >>  From: "Jocelyn Limpert" <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 7:44 AM
> >>  Subject: use of "my bad"
> >>
> >>
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> >>  > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  > Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  > Subject:      use of "my bad"
> >>  >
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >
> >>  > Does anyone care to comment on the currently popular use of "my bad"?
> >>  >
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