shit! (coarse exclamation of annoyance or disgust)

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 1:25 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> saying s--t

A Wilsonic sociolinguistic anecdote.

When I was at UC Davis, 28-year-old Wanda, one of Joan Didion's
high-school classmates, founded a social organization, called
"Latecomers," for older undergraduate students - 26-plus-years-old;
i.e., drop-outs who had dropped back in. Being 32 at the time, I
naturally joined this club. As a member of the B of D, I had occasion
to talk one-on-one with Wanda. Surprisingly, Wanda always used the
obscenity, "shit," in the manner that George describes.

Being somewhat of a stone-boojie prude WRT the language of women - a
_lady_ *absolutely never* uses *any* kind of obscenity in her speech
under *any* circumstances - I found this to be indescribably annoying,
to the extent  that, finally, I had to speak to Wanda about it,
despite my having a strong propensity to mind my own business. The
woman was just plain grossing me out!

When I attempted to take her to task, she unblushingly revealed that
she spoke in that manner *specifically* for *my* benefit!

*You* don't say!

Why, yes, she *did* say! She had long since noticed that black males
of all ages (stereo)typically peppered their speech with "shi-i-it"
and, by using that locution herself, she was merely attempting to
demonstrate to me that, being quite liberal WRT matters of race, she
had no problem, if I wonid t' go 'head own 'n' rillax 'n' tawk m' own
bleck lang-widge wit' huh, jes' lak she was a cullud 'oman. [She
didn't try to run it down to me in my own language. She spoke proper
California English. I threw in the eye-dialect merely for effect.] She
was just trying to help me to feel comfortable, in what musst be an
awkward situation for me.

Needless to say, I didn't know whether to shit or go blind, to use a
white expression so that my white readers will realize that it's cool
with me, if they choose not to use eye-dialect BE when dealing with
me. Not that I have the impression that anyone here is doing or ever
has done anything like that. I'm jes' messin' wit chawl. ;-) IAC, it
was a low-key variant of "We had to destroy the village in order to
save it." By letting me know that she was fully aware that I was
different, she intended to show that she fully appreciated our
identity.

This was back in '69, a mere fifteen years after Brown vs. B of E, and
even *good* white folk didn't have any idea how welcome the dusky
brother into the club.

BTW, Latecomers became such a big deal that a college-ratings book
once cited it as a reason that someone, especially an older
undergraduate, might prefer Davis over other colleges.

--
-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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