_Break nasty_ = "jump salty"

Mark Mandel thnidu at GMAIL.COM
Mon May 3 03:33:54 UTC 2010


Well, comrade, you've blown my cover.

m a m

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 11:31 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Uh, have any of you not known any black people outside of academia and
> the field of entertainment? Well, considering that the hypercorrected
> "Jump Sturdy" reveals that well-known whigger, Dr. John, to be no more
> than a poseur, why should I expect more of y'all, who have never put
> forth that y'all are, in any sense, hip to any kind of jive, (pace
> Neil Whitman;=)).
>
> We, colored folk, pronounce "steady, sledge, flesh," and a heap of
> other words with [^] as the stressed vowel in places wherein the
> standard pronunciation is [E].
>
> "Jump steady," "rock steady," et sim., with "steady" > [st^dI] in all
> cases, is a name that has been applied to any number of dances popular
> with the colored people over the years, from at least the days of
> Louis Armstrong to those of Aretha Franklin and, possibly, even
> farther. I can't say fuh sho, having been off the set for far too many
> dekkids.
>
> Phrases such as
>
 ...

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