use of "my bad"

[Wilson Gray]

"Baby talk'?! Shit, man! That's cold-hearted!

-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





On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: use of "my bad"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The 1986 Wielgus & Wolff ex. was discovered by me. The seeming childishness
> of the phrase, combined with a paucity of good cites, kept it out of HDAS
> I. Â Naturally, within a few months of publication (April 1994), I was
> hearing it frequently on campus.
>
> FWIW, I doubt that "my bad" enjoyed much currency anywhere before the early
> '80s except possibly as baby talk. FWIW.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â 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:
>> >
>> >> Â ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> >> Â -----------------------
>> >> Â Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Â Poster: Â  Â  Â  Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
>> >> Â Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: use of "my bad"
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> Â I first heard it when my son used it as a middle school student in the
>> >> Â mid-1980s. Â still used, esp. by ballplayers, after an error or misplay.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Â Bill Palmer
>> >>
>> >> Â ----- Original Message -----
>> >> Â From: "Jocelyn Limpert" <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
>> >> Â To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Â Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 7:44 AM
>> >> Â Subject: use of "my bad"
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Â > ---------------------- Information from the mail
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>> >> Â > Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Â > Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
>> >> Â > Subject: Â  Â  Â use of "my bad"
>> >> Â >
>> >>
>>
>> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> Â >
>> >> Â > Does anyone care to comment on the currently popular use of "my bad"?
>> >> Â >
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