[Ads-l] to rock, vt = to wear, to sport

[Jesse Sheidlower]

<sigh>

All that time to overly refine the OED entry, and no one gets around to looking it up....

OED _rock_ v.(1) sense 12 is divided into three subsenses: sense a, "To handle effectively and impressively..." (e.g. "rock the mic"), is found from 1978, in a live Grandmaster Flash concert; sense b, "To perform or produce..." ("rock the rhymes"), from 1979 from the Sugarhill Gang, and the sense in question here, defined in full as "To wear, esp. with panache; to display, flaunt, or sport (as a personally distinctive style, accessory, possession, etc.).", from 1987, citing Boogie Down Productions, with a range of additional quotes, including ones from Run-DMC, the Wu-Tang Clan, and Mase, on a Puff Daddy song (as well as the NY Times and Cosmo Girl).

Jesse Sheidlower

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 05:39:23PM -0400, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> This has been around for a number of years and is common on entertainment
> TV.
> 
> Weirdly, I don't see it in Urban Dictionary.
> 
> HDAS has no exx., so I must have encountered it after 2007 or so. I
> associate it with hip-hop.
> 
> JL
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 1:33 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > From a thread in the newsgroup of a group I belong to. Names omitted for
> > obvious reasons.
> >
> > ========
> >
> > (Female writes:)
> > any suggestions for places that might have naturally curly wigs? I mean,
> > I'd love to rock the waist-length Sandra Bullock look, but...
> >
> > ========
> >
> > (Male writes:)
> > one of my colleagues in Los Angeles who is now cancer free and back at work
> > - sometimes rocking a wig and sometimes not.
> > ...
> > [Female film director] has more than owned - nee rocked - her baldness -
> >
> > ========
> >
> > Mark Mandel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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