Over in the comments at Booker, I saw somethin that kinda caught my attention. The discussion over there is about the code switching (or the lack thereof) of the Obama family, kinda centering on President Obama’s use of the phrase, “Nah, we straight” when he was at Ben’s Chili Bowl. While I’m kinda interested in the Obamas as a very visible example of code-switching, this ain’t really about them. It’s about the idea of code switching and its function.

In the comments over there, I mentioned that I give the side-eye to Black folks who don’t code switch. It’s not necessarily that I regard them as less-Black or anything like that, I just don’t like the way it sounds. But then, I readily concede that I’m prejudiced. I like my Black folks to sound a certain way, and I like my white folks to sound some other way. That’s just me. At the end of the day, jokers talk how they talk and it’s all good, but I still have my preferences. That’s why my daughter’s valley girl-sounding talk is mildly irritating to me, when you get down to it.

See, here’s the thing: I expect folks to sound profesisonal in the workplace. Depending on the specifics of the job, sounding “professional” may entail using more jargon than vernacular and effectively morphing to that generic “mid-america”-type newscaster speech style. I don’t have a problem with that. I do it myself. One time I was talkin to somebody on the phone and he said I reminded him of Mike Huckabee. (He meant it as a compliment, so I took it as one.) Now the people who know me personally would be staggered by that. One of my friends who I’ve known since grade school but hadn’t talked to in several years (Facebook is the truth) just about died when I told him that I had taught English. You talmbout bein strecthed beyond the ability to suspend disbelief… But that’s me. That’s what I do, and that’s what I grew up doing. And because we tend to normalize our behavior, and that of our families, that’s pretty much what I expect everybody to do. I’ve actually had people tell me that my speech sounded like an affectation, but that’s only because of the context in which they originally met me. People who knew me from grad school generally expected me to sound like I did in grad school when on the street. Maybe within a degree or two. But my work/school talk is radically different from how I sound any context other than those. The fact that they were surprised only means that I had switched very well. (And that’s even before we take into account how much I say “14.”)

My usual metaphor for language as far as code-switching goes is shoes. You wear the right shoe for the right occasion. Just like you put on the right linguistic style – diction, vocabulary, all’a that – in the appropriate circumstances. Now I know that there’s some Black folks who don’t code switch. They stay in that “Rockport” all day. And that’s fine. I don’t begrudge them…too much (cept Ave 2.0 ^X). Me? When I’m anywhere but at work, it’s all about that “Adidas,” and more than likely, it’s gon be them “flip-flops.”

So I was thinking about some of what Dollar Bill said and to fully explore the idea, I figured it would work better if I ran it as a podcast..or two.

Linguistic dialectical development Part 1

Having lived in a couple different regions of the US during fairly important stages in my development, I suppose it’s reasonable that my speech is a mishmash of regional dialects. Witness the following results on different informal accent surveys:

It might be saying something if I had taken those quizzes at different points in life and gotten those results. But naw, I just took em all this morning. Obviously, it’s not scientific, but it is interesting to look at.

I use the word ‘nigga’ a lot. Some folks would say inordinately so. Recently while I had a pretty long drive, I tried to figure out why. But in writing about it publicly, I hafta kinda write some things out long-hand that I already know that undergird my usage. So allow me to spell it out and define the terms of my own usage.

While I’m keenly aware of the spaces that the word “nigga” traditionally occupies, I’d say that its place in my idiolect doesn’t really correspond to any of those. First of all, it’s not a race-specific word. Anybody can be a nigga. Lately, Andy Reid has been a whole lotta nigga. (Course, Andy Reid is a whole lotta whatever he is.) So has my car. And my roommate’s cat. (I just about slapped the shavings outta that fool when she hopped up on the counter and started nibblin on some of my ham.) Of course, it goes without saying that people in traffic – when not being “persons” are niggas. Point being, there is no distinctly racial element to it. I mean really, as I use it, a “nigga” doesn’t necessarily even hafta be a person. There’s almost an anthropomorphic sense of the word. So it’s not at all about Black people, specifically. Although it can be that.

I should also point out that ‘nigga’ is not necessarily a pejorative term. I think the whole nigga-as-term-of-endearment argument has been done to death, and I do use it like that on occasion, but more often than not, that’s not how I’m using it either. So, let’s say that I’m listening to Bud Powell’s recording of Tempus Fugit. I might say, “I first heard this joint 21 years ago when I was listening to that nigga, Dick Buckley’s, jazz show on WBEZ the night Harold Washington died.” For one thing, I don’t know what race Dick Buckley was (is?), so that automatically rules out any race-specific usage. Second, the word “nigga” here can be swapped with any of a number of words, and it would still make sense. Really, I could take that whole specifier out and the sentence would work just as well. But clearly, there is no pejorative there. It’s acting like a descriptive phrase, but it’s really not, because it’s not describing anything. It’s just kinda there. Another example, with me still listening to Bud Powell, might have me saying, “That nigga played an exorcistic run from :37 to :40.” In this case, the overall meaning of the sentence is not even neutral, it’s fairly effusive praise. So to be clear, the word itself is neither race-specific nor negative. So what is it?

Like I said, I put a good deal of thought into it, then it hit me: I use “nigga” as a euphemism for “motherfucker.” Because I’m at a stage where I’m not cussing, the four-syllable (t4-S) word doesn’t get run anymore, but its specter still looms over my idiolect. So in swapping it out, I subbed in the next-closest non-cuss word, which is ‘nigga.’ If you look back at all the examples, if you put in t4-S, it makes perfect sense. Very rarely does t4-S have any meaning that’s specific to human beings, much less any specific racial connotation. It’s just there. Which is why my usage of the term generally doesn’t either. Cuz when I’m sayin ‘nigga,’ I’m not sayin ‘nigga,’ I’m sayin’ t4-S.

Now, the limitation here is that “nigga” can’t be used in all the same ways that the t4-S can. For instance, t4-S can be made into an adjective by adding -in(g). “Nigga” doesn’t work like that, even if I pronounce it with the -er, primarily because it’s not based on a verb, as t4-S is. What’s even more interesting is that I don’t even know if I have a substitute for t4-S as an adjective. (Lookin at it on the screen, I might fool around and start using “four-syllable” as an adjectival euphemism. Almost nobody would know what I’m talkin about, but that’s never really mattered to me anyway. “That nigga bumper bout to fall off his four-syllable car.” Or “That nigga played the devil out that four-syllable bass.”) That’s weird, in a way, but not so much. Cuz I think I’ve got plenty of adjectives at my disposal. It’s very possible that the only I used t4-S as an adjective was for the rhythm of the sentence or for its punctuative and/or intensifying value. Like that time I called somebody a 4-syllable “inept-ass” whateverwhatever. The real insult was based around ‘inept.’ The rest of it was just for the flow, even though the word inept is really awkward in that context.

Now obviously, I know that most people don’t use “nigga” like that, and even more don’t hear it like that, so I don’t use it in mixed company. In this case, mixed company is people who don’t use the word or have a philosophical bent against it. Or it could mean 99.85 percent of white people. That .15 percent would be my play sister’s fiance. I say ‘nigga’ around him all the time, cuz I say it around her all the time. But I never say it around him if she ain’t there.

Stepped on a tin, my story ends.

I don’t straight-out cosign nobody hardly, but one person who usually comes very close on the linguistic nuances of racial speech is Jeremy Pierce. In a recent post, he outlines his philosophy for giving people the benefit of the doubt when racism is possible but not clearly established.

For the same reason that we don’t assume guilt with crimes, we should also not assume guilt with moral accusations that aren’t crimes. It’s basic human decency, and I find it sorely lacking among people who throw racism charges around without strong evidence. Being hesitant in particular cases when you don’t know for sure is not the same thing as denying that racism is real. No, it’s just being unsure about particular cases when you don’t know for sure. I can’t count how many times I’ve been accused of justifying racism when I’ve pointed out that a racism charge is unwarranted. Only if you don’t know the distinction between being true and being proved to be true can you make such a charge. You don’t need to deny that racism is real or even that it’s widespread and so deep-seated that it’s hard to spot in order to point out that a particular case is not clearly racist and thus unfair to call racist, and this will be true no matter how many such particular cases you find.

I’ve given a moral argument for my policy of giving people the benefit of the doubt in cases of potential but unestablished racism. I don’t think it should have to bring any negative racial effects as long as those who question racist accusations in particular cases are willing to acknowledge it when it’s clear and insist that there are probably plenty of cases of real racism where we unfortunately can’t be sure and thus be able to call them on it. My sense is that conservatives on race are sorely lacking in that sort of thing, and that’s why every attempt to follow a policy like mine gets seen as an attempt to justify actual racism. But I don’t see how that mistake on the part of people who follow a policy like mine can justify the accusation of trying to justify racism, as has been said about me many times in the comments at Racialicious whenever I’ve said that a charge of racism is going beyond what we can be sure of. But people prone to leap to racism charges without enough evidence are also prone to leap to racism-justifying charges without reason.

COS.

To add on to it a little bit, I still think there’s needs to be another term in there that can classify degrees of racism. Cuz even for people who think that every potential example of racism is the real thing, there still has to be an acknowledgment that they’re not all on the same level. And I’m specifically referring to verbal instances here. For instance, if the article Al Sharpton was complaining about earlier this week, where the author congratulated New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin for “tightening the noose” on Plaxico Burress, really does qualify as racism, that would hafta be a fairly low grade. Distinguishing degrees, I think, is fairly important because it would open up some possibilities for actually discussing.

It would never work, though, because most people aren’t really interesting in having racial discussions at that level. It’s too easy to leave it as a nebulous concept. It’s easy to throw, easy to block, and easy to choose sides. To really break it down, it would be necessary to dissect the term and see what’s what. And I agree with Jeremy that when intent can’t be determined, it’s better to give a person the benefit of the doubt. Cuz there are enough instances where the intent is clear to leave the questionable cases to the side.

John Mark Reynolds has an extremely interesting post on politics vis a vis profanity. In it, he surmises:

To paraphrase Senator Edwards, there are two Americas. There is the America where calling your opponent a (insert profanity here) freak is normal and the Other Places where it is not. Vulgar America is a place where blasphemy, the real kind, is still considered “daring” and the only offense would be feeling offended by it. There are Other Places where using the Lord’s name in vain is still considered rude.

If you live mostly in one place, then the other seems weird to you. In the Other Places, a lady or gentleman might swear (though with apologies later) when very angry. The “frankly Scarlet” line of attack is tolerated, if not encouraged in extreme circumstances.

While Reynolds’ piece is primarily focused on the political ramifications of this cultural split, I’m more interested in the sociological implications. He notes,

Senator Obama is best understood as coming out of the blend of government and academic conferences and non-profits that often views itself as the best part of the nation. He “gets” that world . . . including the new rules of Vulgar America. As a result, the harsh words of Jeremiah Wright (”d- America”) do not sound so harsh to him and opposition to them must be all about race.

He repudiates some of the “ideas” of Reverend Wright, in good academic fashion with no clarity about which ideas he rejects. Even most Democrat primary voters don’t see how alienating these words are, because at least a big plurality of them live and work in Vulgar America.

Divorcing it from the explicitly political, I’d hafta say that I’m from Vulgar America. Not saying that I grew up with a bunch of people who cuss like sailors (I’ve heard that my mother cussed once, but I’ve never actually heard her cuss.), but the groups that he cites as being the constituents of Vulgar America have tended to be the circles I’ve traveled in my adult life. But then, I think there’s a degree to which he oversimplifies the differences in Vulgar America and Other America. Specifically, I think there are people in Other America who do (or would, if they heard the entire sermon) understand where Reverend Wright, for instance, is coming from, even if they disagree with it. In other words, I don’t know that the rhetorical devices of Vulgar America, for lack of a better term (pun intended), are as much of a disconnect as he supposes. While I am certain that there are people who shut off completely when they hear “vulgar” phrasing, my general impression is that cussing is not as off-putting as Reynolds would have us believe. But then, I probably wouldn’t know because I live in Vulgar America.

But thinking about it a little more, and perhaps from a dramatically different angle, I’m curious about how Black “Vulgar America” is. Now what I’m not suggesting is that all Black folks cuss regularly, or even abide cussing in their presence, because ultimately his point is not about the specific vocabulary of vulgarity. While Reynolds is careful to make academia the central locus of Vulgar America, thereby allowing it to influence pundits on both the left and right, the way he describes Other America …They will tolerate a dismissive McCain vulgarity in [terrorist fascism's] direction, but they don’t want to hear their sacred things (God, duty, honor, country) dismissed that way. For some reason, that line fills me with a very specific image of what Other America looks like, and the picture I see looks a lot like the crowd at a tractor pull, a NASCAR event, or at Graceland. Now, this may not at all be Reynolds’ intent, but that’s kinda what I’m seeing. I see superimposed flags and crosses. I see people with a “love it or leave it” mentality, which is not where most of the Black folks I know come from, regardless of their political bent. See, most of the Black folks I’ve known in my life (which means the overwhelming majority of the people I’ve known in my life), Democratic, Republican, Independent, and other, have no problems understanding that loving America, or being proud of it, is not the same as uncritical acceptance of everything that goes on here. In fact, if I’m honest about it, the only Black folks I’ve ever “known” who have intimated otherwise are ones I “know” only via their writing. (And for real, I personally believe that the timbre of their arguments is amped up a bit to elicit reactions. My guess is that if I actually knew those people, the ideas I’d hear expressed would be quite a bit more nuanced.) And again, I’m not saying that the “God, honor, duty, country” set can’t include any Black people, but my guess is that if it does, there aren’t a whole, whole lot of us in there. Not if those are the main criteria.

To take it a little further afield, I think that the designation of “vulgar” is very much class-based. I mean, if you do the etymology, there’s no question that certain words got acceptance by “cultured” folk because those were the words the “cultured” folks used. I mean, for real – the word “vulgar” itself is rooted in the idea that “there’s a lower class and we ain’t it.” Now for much of American history, the “we ain’t it” class has been Us. Commensurate with that, many of our cultural products have been regarded as “vulgar” (at least at their inception), even when they reflected high artistry. (Hello, Jazz, et al) Hence, while I’m fairly sure that Reynolds’ by no means intended to automatically include Black folks in Vulgar America, I wonder if his description of Other America inadvertently excludes us.

But then at the same time, I’m also thinking that what he says about Other America, “they don’t want to hear their sacred things dismissed…” is true of any group, even Vulgar America. The only line of demarcation between the Other America he describes and another Other America is what constitutes the “scared things.” Cuz my guess is that for even people who cuss all the time, there are certain people/things/ideas/institutions for which certain words are always inappropriate. But that’s just me guessin’. I probably don’t know, because it’s pretty much a lock that I don’t live in Reynolds’ Other America.

Generally speaking, I’m about as much of a linguistic aprescriptivist as there can be. I generally try to focus more on the idea than the specific words, because in most cases, the idea is where the real action is. Me, I’d rather understand what the person who’s cussin is tryin to say than get caught up on the fact that he cussed. Having said that, I can’t front like I don’t play semantics games. I do it all the time; dependin on who you ask, I do it too much. All that’s just to say that it was with mild interest that I read Walter Williams’ piece, Silly Talk.

I ain’t gon’ lie, I, too, get mildly peeved when I people use reflexive pronouns incorrectly “He went to the store with myself,” or when I hear somebody say “…and I” when it should be “…and me.” But not for the reasons Professor Williams outlines. With me, it ain’t about the verbiage itself, per se, it’s that most people don’t recognize the fact that they’re using a nonstandard grammatical construction. Again, there would be no problem for me if those weren’t some of the same people (and same types of people) who raised such a stink about other types of nonstandard construction, like AAVE.

Even though he seems to take more umbrage to it than I do, I was pretty much on board with Professor Williams until he dropped this:

I wonder whether it’s just me, or is anyone else bothered by silly talk? It might be that I’m getting old and out of touch, or it might be that I’m suffering from having received my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people and nonsense was unacceptable.

“Fashionable for white people to talk like black people?” Really? There’s a part of me that wants to let that line ride, but I can’t. With the construction he’s using, it seems to be equating the way Black people talk to silliness or nonsense. Given the examples he cites earlier, I don’t necessarily think he intends to disparage Black people, but it sure seems like he’s meaning to do that. But that kind of talk is, well, just silly.

I don’t think I mentioned the Mayweather-Hatton destruction last month, but I did watch it. I actually watched both of Pretty Boy Floyd’s fights last year. The first one wasn’t so impressive, but I couldn’t even front on him last month. He was good. And he won me some money. I had bet on a KO in 11, so I won the dough. Good times all around.

Of course, the best part about a Mayweather fight isn’t the fight, or even Mayweather himself. Personally, I find the “money” persona to be borderline insufferable. Naw, the best thing about a Mayweather fight is the older Mayweathers, Floyd Sr. and Roger. To hear them talk is a thing of beauty.

As people who know me know (and if you don’t, you can look down a couple posts and see the breakdown on ass-compounds), I’m particular to AAVE, particular the more…spicy version. At one time, my favorite word in the world was “motherfucker,” and even though that’s not necessarily the case any more, it still has a special place in my heart. Bearing that in mind, it’s only natural that I love to listen to Big Floyd and Uncle Roger. Number one, because they’re SO vulgar with it, but number two, because of their cadence. They, like the late Robin Harris, say the word the way it’s supposed to be said.

All that notwithstanding, Big Floyd had some…interesting comments on Li’l Floyd’s potential foray into mixed martial arts from an interview at fighthype.com. (If you’re linguistically sensitive, stop NOW!)

“He ain’t got to worry about retiring. When they get through with his ass, he will be retired. He will be retired fucking with them motherfuckers. They would love to fight him. This ain’t no fucking boxing; ain’t none of these motherfuckers scared of his ass. I’ll fight one of them motherfuckers if they just want to throw their guards up. I’m old and I’ll beat they ass, but when they start talking about that going to the ground, elbows and knees and all of that, man fuck that shit. I ain’t about to go in there. Them motherfuckers dangerous man. One thing about it, them guys can take a fucking punch man. Those guys will laugh at Lil Floyd when he hit them.”

If a person’s gonna cuss, they should model after Big Floyd and Uncle Roger. Seriously.