It never occurred to me to ask what that, ‘b’ meant. I’d always assumed it was ‘b’ as in ‘b(eat)-boy’. There was, too, the letter, ‘g’ and I had no clue about that.

Anyway, this sounds like a really interesting exercise, holmes.

B in b-boy is for ‘break’. B in whassup b is for brother aka bro aka ‘bro-ham’ (which is from brougham as in Cadillac Brougham).

‘G’ is now for ‘gangsta’ but it used to be for ‘girls’. That’s right. We’d say there were some Gs at the party and if somebody got ‘geed up’ that meant that he scored sexually.

Speaking of Gs. If a G was butter, well that was very good. On the other hand she might be a ‘duck’, worse a ‘mud duck’, a ’skag’ or a ’skeezer’. A skeezer is pretty much equivalent to a contemporary ’skank’, except there was a class of semi-respectable brothers whose business was chasing skeezers. (Because pussy don’t got no face)

Some of us were somewhat surprised by Biz Markie’s verbalization of ’skeezer’ (..dying for the day to get skeezed..), but accepted it.

Back to the male gender, positive attribute. ‘Little man’ was a standard and used with affection. Whereas ‘homie’ almost never meant one’s own homie. You see, the original ‘homeboy’ meant just that. A boy who stayed in his house and didn’t come out to play sports. It was a fairly light insult unless it came from a gangbanger which meant you were too much of a wimp to get in a gang, which was the general assumption and thus generally unknown brothers were assumed to be homeboys.

“I ain’t your homeboy” was the standard response after which you would say your name, straight out. You say your first name, or if you were older some might go by their last name. If you gave a nickname and you weren’t a banger it could play either way. Brothers would figure you to be some kind of character; that could be good or bad depending on the rep of your neighborhood.

I am speaking now from the context of the elaborate socialization of pickup sports in the ‘hood, West Coast circa 1973-79. 50% basketball, 30% football, 20% other. I hold that today these are lost arts.

‘Youngblood’ as well as ‘blood’ was a positive personal pronoun before the gang of the same name came into existence. “What’s up blood?” was very popular, and morphed into ‘bleed’. At about the same time, “What’s up cuz?” hit the streets. Crips adapted ‘cuz’, short for cousin (and nobody ever said what’s up ‘cousin’). Bloods, obviously took ‘blood’. Thus youngblood lost favor, ‘bleed’ was used more often. ‘Cuz’ became ‘cuzmo’. So if you were unaffiliated with a gang, you would end up saying ‘what’s up bleed’ or ‘what’s up cuzmo’.
Cuzmo became cosmo, but had no association with the magazine or George Jetson’s boss. By the time of the wiki-wiki of the Jonzon crew, there had already been lot’s of cosmos, if not a cosmo-d from outer space.

In sports, you could play anonymous. You might become ‘homeboy in the blue shirt’ or whatever you were wearing. Remembering that homeboy is slightly derogatory, you may or may not choose to introduce yourself by name, simply play the game and let your skills talk. Until such time as you make a particularly skillful play at which point you tell people your name, following Muhammad Ali.

Of all the anonymous names, the one most valued was ‘The Kid’. Brothers with inflated egos would refer to themselves in the third person as ‘The Kid’ often sportscasting their own activity in realtime. “The Kid charges the lane, he shoots, he scores!”. Nobody else will call you ‘The Kid’ no matter how good you are.

“Yo” became the common tag in Baltimore for years and still applies.
“Youngin” was used some by “old heads” to the “youngers.”

We just used names and nicks.

Yeah, the kids say “youngin’” all the time too…which is ironic, since my kids, being 9th graders, should be the youngest kids in the school. (i do have a couple 16 year-olds, though)

I think I’m gonna stick with the letters, B and G. I might also try to resurrect one of the classic, though short-lived Philly terms, “chumpie.”

Cobb, I used to do the anonymous playing when I was in high school. I played football on the weekends and nobody knew my name. All they knew was the number 56 on my worn-out practice jersey. But they knew they’d better block that jawn.

Now G for god, or G for gangsta, I knew.

Mud duck. It’s too bad I’m the teacher and can’t really introduce that into the lexicon. Although the kids hipped me to the fact that a “roller” is a girl who gets around these days.

Rollers! that’s funny. Because rollers were two things back in the day. They were the cops, and they were big pink plastic cylinder’s in a pimp’s head when he was getting his conk done.

Damn! can you remember brother’s strolling down the block with big pink rollers? I can.

“Roller” as a skeezer, eh? How things change. Roller, from paddyroller, was, as Cobb states, The Man. But then again, I have non-Black co-workers who use the expression, “The Man”.

Who are THEY talkin’ ’bout?

Things you could resurrect if you weren’t an RA (responsible adult) “leg” (lovemaking),”drawers” (lovemaking, sometimes called “silk drawers”)”panties” (lovemaking).

Things you can:
solid, nasty, beaucoup, “for days”, ducats, buggin’,half-step

Ends=$
Units=Parents
Headed back to the Ranch=Goin’ Home
Broke=weak

[...] Over at his spot, my man Ave wonders what words he could re-introduce into the lexicon at the high school where he teaches. Lucky kids! [...]