"The Heart, She Holler"

[Wilson Gray]

In an episode of the dramedy of this title, set in a mythical, hick
Southern hamlet known to its denizens as "Hartshee Holler," the local
mad scientist constructs of gold an anthropomorphic, colored robot -
acted by an actual black actor painted gold - of the Asimov school to
handle the town's labor. There being no other work, the colored robot,
named "N-Word," becomes the mayor. In this position, N-Word refers to
himself as the "head nigger in charge."

I am, needless to say, familiar with phrase. Of interest is only the
fact, in Saint Louis - as usual, linguistic-islanding its as off, we
used only, "head nigger _on duty_." AFAIK, StL is the only place where
the "on duty" version is used and "in charge" is the only form used
everywhere else.

But, given that my first-hand knowledge of speech patterns in StL is
ca. 65 years out of date,

Youneverknow,

The language of hip-hop/rap is too narrow in scope.

--
-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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