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

[Margaret Lee]

Geneva Smitherman's Black Talk defines 'naps' as "the extremely tight curls of natural, unstraightened Black hair."  'Nappy': "the natural state of African American hair, curled so tightly that it appears 'wooly.' "So texture seems to be a factor.
--Margaret Lee
      From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 1:07 AM
 Subject: Heard: _naps_ "the hair on the head of a black person"
   
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