[Ads-l] Carry - "(to) humble", "humiliate", "lower one's dignity"

[Z Sohna]

I tried searching to see if anyone had already written about the word
“carry” among Native Black Americans, but I couldn’t find anything in the
archives. However, for anyone exposed to Native Black Americans from North
Carolina, DC, Maryland, or Virginia, you’re likely already familiar with
this usage of “carry”. The definitions are as follows:

“to humble”,
“to lower someone in dignity” (I actually saw this definition on a website
and it is exactly how I would define it as well)
“to humiliate”
“to embarrass”
“to treat someone as if said person is unimportant or irrelevant”

Though it’s often attributed to DC, I’ve documented this usage among
elderly speakers from Virginia and North Carolina. Considering the history
of DC, this should not be surprising.

The following are usage examples that are freely available on the internet:

          "You *carry* me & don’t care but when I humiliate you , I suppose
to care ? Yeah ok”.
          https://twitter.com/morgvnn__/status/1489664655836463111

          "How can you disrespect and *carry* somebody who is always there
for you no matter wat the situation is”
          https://twitter.com/___Quanda/status/564623856816504832

This Native Black American usage of “carry” is an Africanism - a calque
derived from the Igbo *buda* “to humble”, “to humiliate”, “to degrade”
(from the Igbo *bu*- “to carry” + Igbo *da-* “an Igbo suffix that indicates
the downward nature of the verb to which it is affixed”); literally “to
carry (down)".

Best,
Zola S.

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