"my bad" revisited one more time

[Alice Faber]

On 6/21/10 9:39 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> Manute Bol, the legendary (but real) 7'7" basketball player who
> hailed from the Sudan and remains the only player in NBA history to
> average more blocks than points per game, died a couple of days ago
> at age 47 of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a painful skin disease from
> which he long suffered. He is known for his humanitarian work in
> Sudan with the "lost boys" and other refugees from the genocidal war
> there, as well as for his unusual body shape, set off in this famous
> photo by that of his sometime teammate, the 5'4" Muggsy Bogues:
> http://trueball.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/manute-bol-n-muggsy-bogues.jpg
>
> But what I *didn't* know (possibly because it isn't true) is that,
> according to sports reporter Bill Plaschke on today's "Around the
> Horn" (ESPN, 5:00-5:30), Manute is also known for something else:
>
> "You might not know this. He coined the phrase 'my bad', back in the
> late 1980's. Language experts have pretty much proven this. When
> they said 'My fault' he would say 'My bad' because he didn't
> understand the language."
>
> Plaschke apparently didn't invent this story: cf.
> http://beforeitsnews.com/news/83/134/Manute_Bols_legacy:_did_he_invent_the_phrase_my_bad.html,
>
> which cites, inter alia, this post by Geoff Pullum on Language Log:
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002693.html
>
> Am I wrong to be skeptical?
>

Funny, one of the blog postings on this that I saw yesterday (citing one
Prof. Horn's comments to Bob Greene of the Chicago Tribune) elicited
some comments asserting that the phrase was playground usage in
Washington in the 60s.

<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/06/manute_bol_and_my_bad.html>

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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                               fax (203) 865-8963

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