“I don’t see nothing wrong with a little bump n’ grind,” sings the R&B star R. Kelly, referring to the hip-thrusting dance that’s all the rage with kids these days. While some people use the phrase the old bump and grind to refer to the daily grind of workaday life, it’s probably better not to use it unless your job involves, well, bumping and grinding. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Old Bump and Grind”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Teresa calling from San Diego.
Hi, Teresa, welcome.
Hey there.
So, I’m actually from Texas. I lived in Houston and Austin most of my life. And I was staying with a roommate there. And I said a phrase that my mom uses often when she has to begrudgingly go back to work, which is, well, I guess it’s back to the old bump and grind.
Oh my.
What does your mother do?
My mom’s a nurse.
Oh, she’s a nurse.
Really a nurse or a nurse in air quotes?
No, no. She doesn’t do singing Telegram kind of nurse stuff.
With a costume?
No, no, she’s a nurse in a psych hospital.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah, when I said this phrase, my friend looked at me and started laughing. And she said, what did you say? And I said, back to the bump and grind. And she goes, those are lyrics from an R. Kelly song. That’s an R&B song. That’s not a phrase that people use. And my mom doesn’t listen to R&B, so I don’t know. What do you guys think? Am I valid in using that phrase?
So you’re worried because your mom says she’s back to the bump and grind, and you think that sounds like she’s a pole dancer.
Well, I just, so, I mean.
She’s an IV pole dancer.
Right, right. No, you know, she would say the phrase, and I just, it sounded normal to me. And I started using the phrase myself. I didn’t think there was anything funny about the phrase until my friend started laughing at me.
And what do you do for a living?
I’ve done a few things. I mainly counsel students on study abroad.
Okay.
We can figure it out, Teresa. For most people, bump and grind denotes and connotes kind of a pelvic thrusting dance that a stripper might do or a pole dancer might do or high schoolers might do when the parents and the chaperones aren’t looking. You know, the kind of like freaky dancing stuff that people do. It involves tassels, usually.
Well, no, it doesn’t have to, but yeah, one kind of it. Ideally.
It’s Elvis-style pelvic thrusting. It’s suggestive and sexual and very erotic, it tends to be. For most people, that’s what bump and grind is.
However, since about the 90s, some people have taken older terms that refer to, say, putting your nose to the grindstone or the daily grind or grinding out a lot of work. All of these refer to kind of this repetitious, boring, dry, day after day stuff. Some people have used that to refer to bump and grind to refer to that as well. And I don’t know if it’s that they missed the connotation there or they did it with a wink and a nudge or it’s just kind of a natural thing and they don’t live such pure, innocent lives. They don’t know about the kind of erotic dancing bump and grind.
Let’s assume that one.
Yeah, something like that. But there’s an interesting kind of overlap there because sometimes bump and grind, you know, when it refers to work, it’s kind of been used to show, to refer to the crush and jostle and slog of everyday life. That kind of slow wearing away of your best intentions, your best effort, and the best possible you. You know what I’m saying?
Yeah.
Adulthood, yeah. Because you start the day noble and valorous with the best intentions. And by the end of the day, you’ve sold out every one of your morals and principles.
Right?
And that’s a kind of…
A normal day.
Yeah, that’s kind of…
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I imagine that some of the people who do bump and grind dancing for a living didn’t intend to end up there.
Oh. I mean, it’s kind of, you know, you start the life with the best of intentions and somehow you end up in a place you didn’t expect. And here I am.
Oh, this is deep, Grant.
That’s my theory. Bottom line, I would avoid using bump and grind to refer to work unless you actually are an erotic dancer.
I would.
Oh, man. Unless you just want to be seen that way.
Well, I think it’s charming. I think you’ll make lots of friends that way. You know, it’s a great conversation starter.
The wrong kind of friends.
People have lots of ones.
Look, she met us.
Yeah.
Right?
It’s true.
It’s true.
Yes.
Well, I’m going to continue to use it and just have fun with it.
Okay.
That’s fair. Have fun with that bumping grind. As long as you go in there knowing what you’re doing, Teresa.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
Hello all!
When this show originally aired, it reminded me of when my own mother used to use “The old bump and grind” phrase. My mother had said she picked it up when she worked in a dinner servering meals to the ladies working in a B-29 factory in Houston, Texas during World War II.
From a very reliable source (my mother), the term was first used by the “Susie the Rivetors” of the day, expressing they had to go back to work to ‘bump’ rivets with a rivet gun and then ‘grind’ them flush with a grinder.
The old bump and grind might have started with the female population back then, but its was never intended to reference anything sexual (according to my inside source)
Luis John Soria