[Ads-l] Green's: _rule_ v., possible antedating*

[Wilson Gray]

*IMO, the antedating is definite. However, the slang meaning of _rule_ is
sufficiently vague that it can be argued that the antedating is of a third
meaning. Either way, I rule!🤡

2. (_US black_) to be in control
1992 D. Burke Street Talk 2 50: Why do you always argue with your boss?
He’s rulin’, not you!
2005 Mad mag. Oct. 24: They suck. We rule and we’re gonna kick their asses.


You _ruled_ me, once. I was a fool for you
You _ruled_ me, once. I was a fool for you
Well, I ain't gonna stand your foolin' aroun'
If I do, If I do, well, I'll be John Brown
Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns: "Well, I'll Be John Brown"
Ace Records 553 (written by Huey Smith) - November, 1958


Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from the Streets of
Philadelphia
Roger D. Abrahams - Preview - Page 72
Aldine Publishing Company. Chicago: 1964
 [The signifying monkey] said, "Damn, Mr. Lion, you went through here
yesterday, the jungle rung.
Now, you come back today, damn near hung."
He said, "Now you come by here [cf. "kumbaya"] when me and my wife trying
to get a little bit,
Tell me that 'I _rule_' shit. I just tried it out. You ain't shit.

... [W]hen the lovin'starts and the lights go down
And there's not another livin'soul around
You _rule**_ me until the sun comes up
And you say that you love me
Fleetwood Mac: "Say You Love Me"
Reprise album "Fleetwood Mac": 1975

**Some transcribers hear _rule_, others hear  _woo_. Absent access to a
copy of the words as Christine McVie herself wrote them, I don't think that
there's any way to resolve this conundrum. Transcribing intercepted Russian
commo was my job in the Army Security Agency and I've _always_ heard the
word as "rule" and _rule_ makes more sense. After all, it is, to quote the
late Eddie Kendricks, "a song about fucking," which is well past the wooing
stage. But there's nothing _necessarily_ precluding "woo." Not even
watching videos of Ms. McVie's mouth-movements*** helps. "Ya pays ya money
an' ya takes ya cherce."

***There was a similar controversy regarding a line of the song, I Can't
Get It Out of My Head: "I saw the ocean's daughter."

a) "Walking on a wave _she came_"

or

b) "Walking on a wave _chicane_"?

Clearly, in context, (a) is the obvious choice. But, when you watch singer
Jeff Lynne's mouth-movements, you see that he can't possibly be saying "she
came." But he could be saying "chicane" and, once that you find out that a
_chicane_ is a kind of "serpentine curve," (b) begins to make sense: a wave
in the shape of a chicane/a chicane composed of a wave.



-- 
-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