Heard on The Judges: _kickback_, n: new meaning

[Wilson Gray]

Joel writes, possibly without pausing for thought:

"And I've associated 'kick back', verb or imperative, with 'relax' for
quite a while"

since this surely must have been true for every speaker of English for
the past sixty years.

I'm sorry about that, Joel. To paraphrase Redd Foxx, I should have
checked with God and four other white men, before I posted.

-Wilson


On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: _kickback_, n: new meaning
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson, the noun is in urbandictionary, described
> as "small gathering between group of friends,
> more than a get together, less than a party (used
> in nor-cal central valley)".  And I've associated
> "kick back", verb or imperative, with "relax" for quite a while.
>
> Neither is defined in the OED, although it has
> two quotations for the verb with this sense, 1988 and 2006.  The 1988 is
> "Muscular Devel. Nov. 33/1 After his shows, Mits
> always throws a mixer where workers, guest
> posers, contestants and Mits himself can kick back and relax."
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/15/2010 11:50 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>Twenty-ish, black male speaker:
>>
>>I was going to a _kickback_ ...
>>
>>Judge:
>>
>>A what?
>>
>>Speaker. A _kickback_. Anyway ...
>>
>>Judge:
>>
>>What's a "_kickback_"?
>>
>>Speaker:
>>
>>It's, uh, like a family get-together. In the backyard. You have some
>>bobby-q (an actual spelling used on?/in? a neon sign in Sth-Cent.
>>L.A., more likely joking than real; helped me to catch the pun in the
>>cookbook title, Barbecuing With Bobby), some brew, a little taste (=
>>"hard liquor") ...
>>
>>
>>BTW, this guy's speech, though otherwise typically working-class BE,
>>was fully r-ful. He actually said "barbecue" and not the "bobbih-cue"
>>of the last century.
>>
>>--
>>-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
>>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-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