Word drift -- "gangbang"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Larry Sheldon wrote:
>
> Comment by Don Surber on Facebook:
>
> "She’s the 6-year-old that gangbangers shot and killed in Chicago while
> she was playing on her front porch over the weekend."
>
> When I was young and lived where this kind of thing happens, a
> "gangbang" was an event where a group of males, each in succession raped
> ("banged"==had sexual intercourse with) a female.
>
> So I don't know from the words what Mr. Surber means.  (From the context
> here and elsewhere, the word apparently not refers to any
> run-of-the-mill hoodlum without any particular meaning.)

Nothing new here. OED has "gangbanger" meaning 'a member of a street gang, esp.
one who engages in gang violence' from 1969. And you can find the relevant
meaning in all the major American dictionaries, too.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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