Can someone please help me out with African-American slang?

I asked Merry Andrew, who works in the "not so public school system" and hears a lot of street lingo made a few suggestions such as my bitch, mama, mama dukes, old girl, home girl.

Again, most of the stuff you're coming up with, JG, is really, really dated : battleax, battlewagon (which was a battleship, incidentally) are 1930's, 1940's--they were someone large and formidable and loud, and at least aged 40 or 50, not a "chick", someone who could cow anyone into submission. Fox or foxy referred to someone who was hot, not tough--and that's l960s and 1970s (Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady"). Barracuda is probqably 1950s or so, similar to battleax, but more with the connotation of sharpness and danger, take you for everything you've got and bite off a leg in passing, like in a divorce settlement. "Stone" is/was an intensifier, like "very", a stone fox was extremely hot, not hard. And again, some of these may have started out in the black community (though that's not clear), but were pretty much everybody-in-America-who-used-slang.

Y'all are killin' me...

WORD.

Yo dawg, keep it tight, aiiiiight? Dis sh!t be poppin, fo' realz, son. Khhhh-khhhh-khhhhh(laughing in African-American).

Thank you-that helps.

ernie laughs like that too. good to know those muppets be keepin' it real. "yo bert, i be rollin' on sesame street, dawg- where you from homie?"

"go back to sleep ernie."

"rubba duckie, you tha one dawg, rubba duckie, you lots a fun, dawg! shout out to my sesame crew, west side!" okay, done now. you're a good sport, snood. gee whiz wally, "good sport?" let's do "whiteisms" next, they're at least as funny as "blackisms."

"that's blackism! you know what you are, you're blackist, mel! you're a blackist cow!" - leigh francis as craig david

For some reason I'm trying to picture Dr. Evil trying to talk like that.

Well I think the crew has arrived JGoldman10 and now it's

Friday Night Fried (Let the play begin)

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Hello. I've seen the term "hard steppa" used-what is a "hard steppa"?

Does anyone know any black slang terms for "tomboy"-A girl that likes to do "guy" things?

for snood's viewing pleasure:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gjXtIdrr9FA

Is there something I have to do to get one of these utube shorts to play? I hit the start button, get maybe 3 seconds of dialog, it stops for an undeterminable period of time, get 3 more seconds yatayatayata etc.

Any suggestions?

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Hi-can someone please answer these questions?

1. faster connection helps.

2. pause and let it all load, then unpause and watch.

3. look for "save youtube videos" and do that. rename the download to a .flv file and find an .flv player for mac or windows. in linux, vlcplayer works.

4. use someone else's computer to watch them. this worked for me for years, i still do this one sometimes.

5. i normally watch them in firefox, by the way.

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Hi-I'd like to know what are African-American slang terms for

"bad girl"?

tomboy is an obsolete term. it means a girl that likes to spend time on things like video games, sports, and who doesn't wear a dress every day.

now we call them geeks or lesbians, or the wnba. all of these terms are acceptable, provided you don't match them up with the wrong girl. important tip there. another thing we call them sometimes: "boss."

I'm guessing, JG, but a "hard steppa" is probably rap for good dancer. Rap is another language unto itself.

I love the jazz boys' exchanges. My husband borrowed a few dollars from his black friend and was reminded of it in a subtle way. "Hey, man. Ain't you kin to me?" Signifyin' is another great expression.

reply to tinygiraffe


Thank you-but I don't want any terms for lesbian.

Do you mean "boss" like "boss girl"?

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Are "jazz" and "rocket" terms I can use for a "tough girl"?

I'd like to know, what is a "mackette"?

no, i meant some of them are literally our bosses.

slang might be something that requires more research than you're willing to do. you think a lot of terms are "african american" that were in use by white people many decades ago, some of which might never be used in any black subculture.

that alone suggests that you're not doing any of your own reading, and i hope you don't think it's rude to say this.

don't get me wrong, but even if you learn what a word means, you still have to learn the situation it would be used in. i have a feeling your project is going to be a collection of items that have nothing to do with the subject- that is, african american slang.

ideally, for each term you look up, you'd try to find it in use in several different places. moxie, lol- that's one i haven't heard in a long time. black term? news to me, although i guess it's possible. the last time i heard it, it was from a white woman, aged 60-something. but maybe she was hip. plus a lot of things are said just to be ironic (like "hip,") but that doesn't give you any clue to how they were used or who they were used by. a mack is someone that can get any girl he wants, or more than one- i guess a mackette would be a female version that can get any guy.