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

[Laurence Horn]

Interestingly, not in DARE.

LH

On Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 1:22 PM Z Sohna <zrice3714 at gmail.com> wrote:

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

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