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

[Ben Zimmer]

We also had a long thread on this use of "rock," with a nearly identical
subject line, way back in 2008. I offered several examples from rap lyrics:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2008-September/084505.html

Jesse worked on overhauling the OED entry for "rock (v.)" the following
year, with the revision published in June 2010. I discussed the new entry
in an On Language column at the time:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/magazine/11FOB-onlanguage-t.html
(citing inter alia a 2008 quote from Kanye West: "I rock a bespoke suit
_and_ I go to Harold's for fried chicken.")

Now it's much easier to find examples of this usage in rap lyrics, since
Matt Kohl has compiled a huge number of them as part of The Right Rhymes,
his project in hip-hop historical lexicography:

https://therightrhymes.com/rock/

Surprisingly, Matt doesn't have the 1987 BDP example (from "Elementary"),
but he has another one from the same year: Eric B. & Rakim's "I Know You
Got Soul": I'm not bold, just 'cause I rock gold."

--bgz

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 6:01 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

> <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
> -
> > >
> > > ========
> > >

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