Michael from Sherman Oaks, California, says that as a teacher in New Jersey in the 1980s, he heard students saying My word is born, meaning “You better believe me,” and later shortened to simply word. The research of linguist Geneva...
What’s the origin of word and word up? A theory in Geneva Smitherman’s Black Talk suggests they descend from the African American proverb your word is your bond, popularized in the 1960s by a splinter group from the Nation of Islam. Along the way...