Date:  Mon, 3 Nov 1997 10:42:27 -0600
From:  "Emerson, Jessie J" <jjemerso[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]INGR.COM>
Subject: "black talk vs. white talk" (was "origins of slang")

How slang is distributed is another question (the first being where
slang originates).

Slang originates in many places, including AAVE, Southern speech (as
we've seen on this list), the speech of varying immigrants through the
years (as we've also seen on this list), etc., etc.

"Popular" culture watches certain T.V. programs/movies and listens to
certain music, "college" culture watches/listens to other types,
"country" culture watches/listens to still other types, etc., etc.
Thus, the distribution of slang doesn't have to be limited to "popular
culture." In the "country" culture of North Alabama, you don't hear
young people say "my bad" or "bust a move." You do hear it in North
Alabama in other "culture" groups.

It seems to me that people don't immediately think about slang coming
from "white talk" because in many areas of the country Standard American
English is the norm (and I suspect this is what everyone on the list is
refering to as "white talk"), not because it is "white talk", but
because T.V. and radio news and other non-entertainment programs have
become widespread. It sounds very similar to the situation that has
been going on for decades in Great Britain. I just don't think the
average citizen of the U.S. is aware of it, because dialects here are
not so vastly different over such relatively small areas (as they are in
GB).

My opinion, based on aging college notes,
Jessie Emerson

    Greg Downing wrote:

> And I absolutely agree with your other point (which I clipped out --
> whoops)
> that a lot of these catch phrases come into wide usage via popular
> culture
> -- TV and movies etc.--, just as a century ago they'd have done so
> through
> music-hall songs or routines, or political sloganeering, etc. (Examine
> the
> clear, or hazy, origins of many items in Partridge's _Dictionary of
> Catch-Phrases_.)
>
>