History Channel: Origin of gang name, "Crips"

[Dan Goncharoff]

Uh, "crisps" are potato chips, not french fries. But, other than that,
it was really, really funny...

DanG

On 7/10/2010 11:03 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: History Channel: Origin of gang name, "Crips"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> What about the theory that the original gang was
> British, known for their carrying and eating from
> greasy bags of french fries as they sauntered on their criminal perambulations?
>
> Joel
>
> At 7/10/2010 10:42 AM, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>
>> Wilson is too modest to mention that his information on "Crips" appeared
>> formally in the Festschrift to names-scholar Ed Lawson.  We are listed as
>> co-authors, but although I wrote up the article, I rely entirely on Wilson's
>> material (ads-l plus follow-up information) and clarify that the substantive
>> contributions are all his.
>>
>> The item is:
>>
>> Wilson Gray and Gerald Cohen: ŒOrigin of the Gang Name ³Crips.²¹
>> Names (Journal of the American Name Society), vol. 55, no. 4, 2007,
>> pp. 455-456.
>>
>> Gerald Cohen
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/9/10 11:13 PM, "Wilson Gray"<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>  wrote:
>>
>> According to the History Channel, the true origin of the gang name,
>> _Crips_, is lost to history.<har! har!>  However, the HC does offer 2
>> theories:
>>
>> 1. The original Crip[ple]s walked about their territory carrying
>> standard, crook-necked walking-canes (as the old blues song has it:
>> "Look [...] wall / Hand me down my _walking-cane_") as their standard,
>> i.e. essentially, the claim posted here by your humble correspondent
>>
>> 2. A Korean store-owner reported to the police that the robbers were
>> "the crippled boys," consonant with my claim, i.e. they probably were
>> carrying their canes, causing the propritor to refer to them as
>> "crippled"
>>
>> ½. The Crips have a special way of walking, shown in the HC's doc.
>>
>>
>> IMO, the Crip-walk is derived from the manner in which a person
>> crippled in one leg walks, though they no longer carry canes.
>> Naturally, that would be my opinion, given that my claim is not only
>> that the Crips *carried* canes, but also that they also walked in such
>> away as to mimic the walk of a genuinely-crippled man. Furthermore,
>> the HC was not presenting anyone's theory, but was merely showing a
>> Crip walkinng the walk. (Y'all didn't know that phrase had a referent
>> in reality.)  Hence, merely "half." YMMV
>>
>> FWIW, 'fo' I got hip to sE, the tool was a "walking-cane." Simple
>> "cane" was only a useful material normally used for making
>> fishing-poles and such.
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> ­­­
>>
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