[Ads-l] Random query: "cripple (shot)"

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jun 27, 2015, at 8:22 AM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:
> 
> I'm familiar with "cripple", but not with "crip" (although I certainly would have understood the latter had I heard it)..  But I didn't play schoolyard basketball with coloreds.  I must have heard "cripple" on the radio (confession: as a young teen I used to listen in bed to Knicks' games, clandestinely because my parents didn't approve of my staying awake so late), or -- less likely -- on TV.  

Ditto on all of the above; I'm sure I heard "cripple" (not "crip") from TV/radio broadcasts of basketball games, often in the context of incredulity at a player missing one.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org