"At dat time, if I'd a knew betta, we'd a copyrighted that shxt!"

[Wilson Gray]

Unfortunately, as the saying (sorta) goes, "Ego is the measure of all
things." :-) I was essentially listening only for the *date*, which
was of interest to me. However, as the speaker told the story,
"bling-bling" originally referenced some musical effect - remember a
similar story WRT to the creation of the term, _be-bop_, by Dizzy
Gillespie (he once shook my hand! And I shall never forget the
immortal words that accompanied that spontaneous gesture: "Wha's
hap'nin', bruh?") - which Li'l Wayne introduced into their rap style
and which he spontaneously referred to by that term. Later, as Wayne
began to make long green, he introduced self-adornament into the field
(according to the speaker), "bling-bling" (WAG: influenced by
"blink-blink" or even crossed with it) shifted its meaning from
musical ornamentation to personal ornamentation.

By chance, does anyone else recall an ad for sum'nutha that ended with
a bespangled country singer smiling into the camera and saying, "But
it was J.W. Name (i.e. the speaker) taught y'all (= other country
singers) to wear sequins!" or something similar? Anyway, the rapper
gave Wayne his propers for having done likewise for rappers.

-Wilson

On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 9:47 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "At dat time, if I'd a knew betta, we'd a copyrighted that
>              shxt!"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It was interesting to see how long it took "bling" to become mainstream.
> Theorists might have insisted that this too-obvious reduction of
> "bling-bling" should have appeared almost immediately.
>
> Of course, less than a decade is kind of "immediately" by linguistic
> standards.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      "At dat time, if I'd a knew betta, we'd a copyrighted that
>> shxt!"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> A member of the former New Orleans rap group, The Hot Boys, which
>> included Li'l Wayne, as he finishes his anecdote explaining the
>> creation of, originally, _bling-bling_, later, _bling_ by Li'l Wayne
>> in 1997.
>>
>> This jibes with my earlier typically-Wilsonic post WRT having seen a
>> TV documentary re black N.O. in which some random - to me, indeed, to
>> practically else over the age of twenty, even in N.O., at that time -
>> local teenager who kept using the term, "bling-bling." Annoying,
>> since, per my grammar and that of other Southern speakers, including
>> Elvis, he should have been saying, "bli[N]-blink." Of course, I was
>> assuming that the speaker was aiming for standard "blink-blink."
>> However, according to the anecdote, it was _bling-bling_ "from Jump
>> Street," to coin a phrase.
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> =96=96=96
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=96=96a strange complaint t=
> o
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> =96Mark Twain
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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--
-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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