Slang Term “Fronting”

Howdy, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Naomi Breinard and I’m from Denton, Texas.

Welcome, Naomi. How are you?

I’m doing great. I had a question.

I go to a public university here in North Texas and I’ve been hearing a word, I think it’s a slang, thrown around campus and I’ve also heard it in pop culture a lot lately and I wanted to know where it originated from.

The word is frontin’, like F-R-O-N-T-I-N, or fronting. I’m not even sure. And I think it means to put up a front. So I was wondering where that came from and how it got thrown around.

Can you give us an example or two of how your friends might use it?

Oh, sure. Yeah, I’ve heard it in some songs, pop culture songs, like Don’t Be Fronting. I’ve heard, I actually don’t personally know anybody that has been using it. I hear it sometimes in the classroom. So I can’t just directly ask them, what do you mean? Why are you saying it like that? But I have heard it a lot in rap and hip-hop songs also.

Sure, absolutely. So I don’t know if that answers your question. Don’t be fronting is the way that they say it.

That’s right. Yeah, yeah. I’m surprised that you’re still hearing it. I didn’t know that fronting or fronting, I didn’t know that that still was being used by the young folks on the college campuses. I’m really surprised to hear that because it’s got a long history, decades and decades.

Really long, yeah. Here’s how it started. I’m going to take you all the way back to the 1800s, all right? And among pickpockets, there was somebody known as the front. And this is the guy who would kind of conceal the actions of the pickpocket. Like he would distract you. You’re the victim. You’re the mark. While the pickpocket would take your purse or your wallet, right? So he’d be fronting for the cut purse, cut purse being another name for pickpocket.

And then later it meant to act as a front, somehow legitimizing or covering for someone’s illegal activities of any kind, not just pickpocketing. And this actually is still the most common form of the word, common slang form of the word. Then, a little bit after that, it started to mean to put on a front that was mainly about false assurance or bluffing, but as part of a confidence game, so it still has that criminal element to it, as part of a confidence game where you try to con someone by getting them to trust you. And ultimately, there’s money at the end of that rainbow, right? So it’s all about deception.

Yeah, at least up to that point. And that’s up until around the 1960s or so. Then we find in the 1980s, it starts to change again, and the criminal element drops away. And it just means to posture, to show off. To front is to kind of put on a false front, to act like something you’re not. And, of course, in any society or any group of people, especially among young men, where it’s important to be authentic, you know, to accuse somebody of frontin’ would be insulting their mother almost because you don’t want to ever be seen as fake and oppose her. There’s a lot of status involved in being genuine and not being known as the guy who’s always frontin’ and pretending to be something he’s not.

And then it meant just a plain lie. You’ll find this in hip-hop songs by Biz Marquis from 1988. And Fab Five Freddy talks about it in one of his books. And, you know, Fab Five Freddy being one of the legends of the hip-hop world. So it’s definitely young black men who still use it primarily, although I imagine there’s some bleed over into young white people who listen to the music as well. I’ve even heard it in Britney Spears’ song. So that’s definitely an example of it bleeding over.

But, you know, that’s the way of slang. It ultimately leaves its crowd. You know, it left the pickpocket crowd and went to the general criminal crowd and went from the criminal crowd to just kind of the street crowd and went from streets to hip-hop, and now it’s being used by it. Now it’s on your campus.

Yeah, and now it’s on the college campuses. Yeah. That’s kind of a normal history for a slang word to kind of move slowly from group to group. It’s cool that it’s still being used. I didn’t know. I don’t often get to the college campuses to get to listen to language being used when people don’t know that I’m doing fieldwork, if you know what I mean. Because if they find out that I’m a guy who studies language and they change their speech and it ruins everything.

Well, that’s very interesting. Thank you so much.

Thanks for calling, Naomi.

Thank you so much for calling, Naomi.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye.

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