Etymology of “Word Up”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Anne. I’m from Dallas.

Hi, Anne. Welcome.

Thank you.

What can we help you with?

I wanted to know the so-called hip but annoying phrase, word up, that was popular in the 90s. Where did that come from?

You find it annoying, huh?

Oh, very annoying because everyone would say it and it would be in commercials and then the cameo song, which is actually wave your hand in the air like you don’t care. That’s the one with the video with the cod pieces. Am I remembering that?

I do remember him and said, yeah exactly, word up. Yeah, that’s where I first heard it. But it’s probably been around. But that was the 80s, wasn’t it?

Oh my god, it was the 80s.

Oh wow, time does fly.

I know.

Embarrassingly so.

Let’s just talk for a second for those people who might have forgotten this term gracefully and thankfully. Word up is used how? If I’m talking to you and I say something you believe is true, then you might say word up. Or you might just say word, which is more kind of, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Really interesting stuff.

Interesting question.

It is kind of old and stale, though, isn’t it?

It is. I don’t know about tired. I still hear it in songs. I hear word. I don’t hear word up.

Yeah.

I’m embarrassed. Is it really stale? I use it on Facebook all the time. If somebody says something I agree with, I just say word.

Yeah.

Old and stale. Put that in the bee’s knees category.

Word down.

Well, have you heard of the linguist and writer Geneva Smitherman? She specializes in writing about black American English, and she’s got this in one of her books called Black Talk. And she’s got a little theory in there that I should think, I don’t know if I can support it, I don’t know if I have data, but this is what she proposes, and I don’t know any reason that this isn’t true. How about that for caveats and hedges, right?

Okay.

So Geneva writes in her book that word is a shortened form, more or less, of the African-American proverb, your word is your bond.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And her theory is here is that the strength of a man’s word is directly indicative of his character. That is, that you are going to do what you say you’re going to do, that when you say something, it can believe to be true, and that when you speak, your words are respectful. And all other things are bound up in these notions. And she suggests that it was popularized by the 5% nation. Do you remember who they were?

No.

This was more or less a splinter group from the Nation of Islam in the 1960s. And so these guys used this as part of their slogans kind of works. So your word is your bond. It was about your word. And so word and word up are kind of shortened forms of the longer expression, the longer idea that your word is your bond.

Wow.

So pretty interesting stuff. So it goes back at least to the 1960s probably. And there are a lot of different forms of this. And one of them is really interesting. Your word is your bond became a little corrupted and was turned into word is born.

Your word is born?

Yeah, or word is born.

Word is born.

Yeah, so it became so used, you know, such a verbal expression rather than a written one that had been passed from mouth to ear and so forth. It became word is born instead of word is bond.

So interesting.

A lot of different paths for this.

Yeah.

And you said what I think the data support, which is that the word is pretty much the only one that’s left. And it’s kind of almost a catch-all word in conversation now, right?

Right.

Well, you know what? I wouldn’t mind using it just because of the fact that’s what it meant.

That it went back?

Yeah, that’s pretty cool, right?

Pretty cool.

Yeah, because that’s what we all believe in this, that when somebody speaks, it better be true. And he better mean it, and it better be respectful. These are just the basic things that we require from dialogue with other people, right?

Exactly.

But that’s different from how I guess I use it, which is just what you just said is true.

Well, that’s the origin of it. And, of course, it became a little, it shifted over time as it was abbreviated and it was passed over the decades, right?

Yeah.

Wow, well, thank you.

Well, you’re welcome.

Yeah, if you want a little more information about that or about African-American English in general, I do recommend Geneva Smitherman’s books. There’s a lot of information in there, and not much better has been written about it.

Yeah, maybe we can link to that on the website.

Yep, we’ll do.

Also, the video with the guys in the Word Up cod pieces. What do you think?

It’s been a while since I’ve seen that.

That can be the new Rick Roll.

Hey, Anne, thanks for calling.

Thanks a lot, you guys.

All right, bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

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