[Ads-l] Heard: _naps_ "the hair on the head of a black person"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Feb 22 06:07:37 UTC 2017


On the Maury Show, a mid-twenty-ish black man argues that he is not the
father because the baby's "naps" are too "straight." The mother,  a bright
- or should that be "mixed" or even "bi-racial"? - woman, counter-argues
that the baby takes after her and its naps merely favor her naps and not
his.

This meaning, which is two days older than water, is not in HDAS and in
Green's is much too narrowly defined as "kinky hair" when, in fact, it
means the hair on the head of anyone perceived as "black," regardless of
its texture.

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



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