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Friday, November 10, 2006

Expressing Black English

posted by on November 10 at 9:18 AM

From the opening sentence for a short article about Seattle’s emerging global status:

With its easy port access to Asia, hot office market and international airport, Seattle’s got it going on…
What is it that black English allows us to express that is somehow lacking in white English? I think it has to do with this: If you are doing well, if you are feeling confident, black English constructions (“got it going on”) get to the feeling of that success more effectively than white English ones. But why is this the case? Considering the economic state of black Americans and that of white Americans, one would expect the latter to produce the most effective ways of expressing success, happiness, and surges of power.

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1

Charles, everything you write about is something to do with black and white. zzzzz

Posted by Owen | November 10, 2006 9:28 AM
2

"...got it going on" is black English?

Posted by Seattle Man | November 10, 2006 9:41 AM
3

Word Charles, word.

Posted by Suz | November 10, 2006 9:46 AM
4

I find that black English focuses a great deal on context rather than exact content, allowing a greater natural expression of true abstractions which in white English would sound effete, overstated, pretentious, or too overtly poetic.

Posted by Nick | November 10, 2006 9:47 AM
5

one would expect the latter to produce the most effective ways of expressing success, happiness, and surges of power.

It does, if one defines such things as defined by business school textbooks. But if one seeks to define those things in more philosophical terms about living, then it fails miserably and black vernacular, based on an experience that has been greatly locked out of the white definition of success, reigns (love) supreme.

Posted by B.D. | November 10, 2006 10:24 AM
6

If you're down and out most of the time, it makes the highs seem higher. No need to develop emotionally expressive interjections if you and your peers are constantly doing well.

Posted by Steve | November 10, 2006 10:32 AM
7

Yeah, those tragic "down and out" black people in America -- who enjoy on average a higher standard of living than WHITE people in Canada or Europe.

Posted by Fnarf | November 10, 2006 10:57 AM
8

To use your distinctions... Maybe "white" terms of success are from a culture used to having success, so culturally the concept is bland and mundane, compares to "black" terms of success, which are more special and celebratory due to the culture not used to so much of it, thereby becoming more special.

Or, maybe the "black" terms are simply more spontaneous, emotional, and free-wheeling, whereas the "white" terms are more pedantic, exacting, and matter-of-fact.

Compare "I've done rather well at the stock market, netting a tidy sum of wealth" to "I'm ALL up in that NASDAQ shit!" One is more accurate and plain, the other more unhinged and carefree.

Oh, and there's the fact that "get it on" and "all up in there" are euphemisms for sex. That's always a big plus for modern cliche's.

Posted by K | November 10, 2006 10:59 AM
9

PS:

I AM IN UR NASDAQ

PWNING UR STOXORZ

(point being, it's not just "black" terms that have the clever wittiness superior to traditional "white" terms. it just depends on your culture of choice.)

Posted by K | November 10, 2006 11:03 AM
10

One can't ascribe qualities to american black vernacular based solely on present or recent past conditions in the subculture. That verve you feel in 'got it goin' on' is African, as much as the Protestant work ethic is European. A close friend of mine by looks could pass for Scottish, but grew up in Zion west of Chicago; give him some make-up and a wig, and he's black -- voice, gestures, attitudes. Economics do play a part, in that our society is economically stratified, preventing the natural diffusion of memes and genes, that -- without the bias of past slavery and present bigotry -- would more naturally turn this country into a hard-working, hard-playing, luscious brown.

Posted by imofftoseethewizard | November 10, 2006 11:15 AM
11

There is no mystery here. Success, or at least the establishment it creates, is boring, staid, static. It depends largely upon defensive, conservative thinking to maintain and perpetuate itself.

On the other hand, the struggle toward success, especially when suppressed by a dominant successful class, is exciting, the stuff of life. "Fuck the Ho-lice" and so forth.

Posted by Doctiloquus | November 10, 2006 12:10 PM
12

Because life is short, unfair and tragic, and if the mean tempo of the cultural basis for your linguistic style is more accepting of those truths rather than doing all it can to escape from them, it will express those truths more powerfully in every way, even talking about Asian trade or whatEVAH.

Posted by Grant Cogswell | November 10, 2006 12:39 PM
13

Actually, evocative, dead on verbal expressions are very working and lower class. My father was an Irish Catholic union printer in Newark during the 1950's and had great expressions.

He would yell at my mother... "Ya know Mary, the fucking I get isn't worth the fucking I get!"


Another gem he would tell his three adoring daughters was... "All you ever need to know about men is this - when we're hard we're soft and when we're soft we're hard."

Posted by Macaca | November 10, 2006 2:15 PM
14

PS: I know remember my favorite expression of his... when I would ask him about his union's fights with management. I'd ask "But how do you know they won't agree to your demands." He's say...
"Oh honey, management never meets but to fuck us over."

Again... couldn't be clearer.

Posted by Macaca | November 10, 2006 2:25 PM
15

Charles, everything you write about is something to do with black and white. zzzzz I disagree go to http://www.apartments.waw.pl/

Posted by apartments warsaw | November 28, 2006 7:55 AM

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