"I feel you."

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> Inept or the latest? From Yahoo!
> http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/7-ways-boost-energy-youre-struggling-big-time-201900862.html
>
> "Feeling tired more often than not? Girl, we feel you: A study from the Center
> for Disease Control and
> Prevention<http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/11/176936210/annals-of-the-obvious-women-way-more-tired-than-men>
>  showed that women are typically more exhausted than men."
>
> Not "your pain," "you."

Possibly inept, as a ham-handed appropriation of AAVE slang, but
certainly not the latest. Green's Dictionary of Slang dates _feel_ 'to
empathize with' back to 1967, with exx of affirmatory _I feel you_
from 2000. (The latter can be found in hiphop lyrics since at least
1993, when Scarface's "Now I Feel Ya" was released.)

--bgz

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

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