Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a fill-in-the-blank puzzle about famous hip-hop rhymes. For example, from Run DMC, there’s the verse: “I’m the king of rock / There is none higher / Sucker MC’s should call me _________.” This...
First-century graffiti. People in ancient times could be just as bawdy and colorful as we are today. To prove it, we found some graffiti written on the walls in the city of Pompeii, and found plenty of sex, arrogance and good old fashioned bathroom...
Spitting game, a way to describe flirting or making a romantic pitch, blends two strands of African-American English slang. Game in the sense of someone’s strategy, hustle, or practiced line goes back at least to the 1960s and may be older. By the...
Brodie, or brody, means to casually swipe or yoink something small, like a pen, lighter, or cold bottle of water. Lynn in Philadelphia remembers classmates using it this way, and user-contributed slang entries plus some hip-hop lyrics point mostly...
To house a beer, sandwich, or pizza is to finish it fast, sometimes because everyone’s about to leave. Whitney in Tallahassee, Florida, heard it from her boyfriend’s friends and wondered about the slang. Its source isn’t certain, but it may connect...
Can reading poetry make you a better writer? The way poetry pushes up against the rules of grammar makes it a great teacher even for the writing of standard prose. And while plenty of poems are best comprehended by the wise and mature, hip-hop is a...