Origin of the term "the dozens"

[Helen Faller]

In addition to the other terms that have been mentioned, active in
Philadelphia, and other cities I'm sure, in the mid-90s before I started
graduate school were "to read someone" and the ubiquitous "to dis." Dis,
which is short for disrespect, had certainly crossed over into pretty
mainstream white speech communities. Reading I first heard among black drag
queens, but it was quickly accommodated by white queens, dykes and
queer-friendly people who hung out with gay black men. These two genres of
insulting involve different rituals from doing the dozens, i.e. one insult
will suffice, and therefore perhaps shouldn't be mentioned in the same
context, although dissing someone is probably performed similarly to
cutting someone. More interesting is that when you read someone, as you
deliver your punchline, you make a broad snapping gesture across the front
of your chest -- sometimes several snaps (3 or 4) are made in a back and
forth motion -- and this produced a new identity tag, snap queen, to
describe a someone who reads people all the time.

Helen Faller

--On Thursday, November 02, 2000, 3:42 PM +0000 P L Patrick
<patrickp at essex.ac.uk> wrote:

> In general I worry a bit about treating African american performance
> rituals and terms in a simplistic way, as though they aren't flexible,
> influenced by region, generation, context etc. But a good source for
> such quick definitions if they're needed is dictionaries such as Geneva
> Smitherman's "Black Talk" (1994). About THE DOZENS she says:
>
> "A verbal ritual of talking negatively about someone's mother (or
> occasionally grandmothers and other female relatives) by ocming up with
> outlandish, highly exaggerated, often sexually loaded, humorous
> 'insults'...[describes use]... The term, though not the ritual itself,
> is believed to have originated during enslavement, wherein slave
> auctioneers sold defective 'merchandise', e.g. sick slaves or older
> slaves, in lots of a dozen; thus a slave who was part of a dozens group
> was 'inferior'. Portrayed in the 1992 film 'White Men Can't Jump'."
> (pp99-100)
>
> This is quite different, as far as I know, from more general practices
> of talking someone down, which could be called "cutting" or "ranking"
> or "low-rating" someone.
>	 There is a related practice -- or maybe the same, called by a
> different name-- in the Washington DC area, where it's known as JONIN'.
> (I've only observed this with kids, but don't know if that's an
> accidental restriction.) This is an example of regional usage which is
> often overlooked in Black speech.
>	 Maybe someone somewhere says JONESIN' for the same activity,
> but as far as I know that's quite different! and you don't wanna go
> confusing the two... Sister G has JONES on p147, but makes no mention
> of JONIN'.
>	 I'll take this opportunity to plug my website on African
> American English:
>	 http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp/AAVE.html
> I haven't done anything to update it in the last year or two, but if
> viewers will give me feedback and suggestions I'll be grateful. It has
> a bibliography, summaries of selected redaings, a course syllabus for a
> graduate seminar dated 1997, a FAQ, links and a couple texts.
> Contributions welcomed.
>	 --plp
>
> On Wed, 01 Nov 2000 14:22:22 -0600 Harriet J Ottenheimer
> <mahafan at ksu.edu> wrote:
>
>> I believe some words currently in use (I am sure there are more that I
>> don't know about) are jonesing, cutting, cut-lows, and ranking.
>> --Harriet Ottenheimer
>>
>
> Prof. Peter L. Patrick
> Dept. of Language & Linguistics
> University of Essex
> Wivenhoe Park
> COLCHESTER CO4 3SQ
> U.K.
>
> Tel: (from within UK) 01206.87.2088
>     (from outside UK) +44.1206.87.2088
> Fax: (as above)           1206.87.2198
> Email: patrickp at essex.ac.uk
> Web: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp