In Black English, the word trifling describes a person who lacks ambition or fails to keep promises. Former President Barack Obama used it that way in his memoir Dreams from My Father (Bookshop|Amazon). This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
To sell wolf tickets, or woof tickets, is to lie, bluff, brag, talk big, or challenge someone without really meaning to fight. The expression likely draws on the old tale of the boy who cried wolf, and known uses go back to the 1940s. The woof...
What’s the origin of the slang term book it!, meaning “depart quickly”? Since slang terms often cross-pollinate, it’s possible that by the 1960s and 1970s this expression formed at the confluence of three other slang terms: bookity-bookity, first...
Semby from Los Angeles, California, asks about saditty, also spelled seditty or siditty, an African American English term for acting stuck up, putting on airs, or acting “better than your raisin.’” A related form, high-sididdy, carries the same...
Learning that fat meat is greasy, which means learning something the hard way, is a common idiom used almost exclusively in the African-American community, and refers to a juicy cut of the pig called fatmeat. Linguist Geneva Smitherman has a great...
Particularly in the African-American community, the affectionate term son is often used for more than just young male offspring—most anyone can be addressed as son. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Addressing as “Son”” Hello, you...
