Bryan A. Garner’s Modern American Usage

[z0ruastudyblr]

Common Words & Phrases from AAVE

Gullah & Early AAVE

Gumbo – From Bantu kingombo (okra), brought by enslaved Africans and became the name of the Creole stew thickened with okra.

Goober – From Kikongo nguba, the Bantu word for peanut that entered American English via enslaved Africans.

Yam – From West African languages (e.g., Wolof nyami, "to eat"), brought over during the slave trade and adopted into Southern cuisine.

Banjo – From a Bantu root (mbanza), the instrument was crafted by enslaved Africans based on West African string instruments.

Bogus – Likely from Hausa boko-boko (deceitful, fraudulent), entering American English through African American speech in the 19th century.

Juke (box/joint) – From Gullah juke (rowdy, disorderly), derived from Wolof dzug (to live wickedly), later attached to roadside bars.

Tote (to carry) – From West African languages (e.g., Kikongo tota, "to pick up"), recorded in Gullah before spreading to mainstream English.

Dig (to understand) – From Wolof degg (to understand), popularized by jazz musicians in the 1930s after entering English through AAVE.

Jazz – Possibly from West African or Creole slang for energy/sex, first documented in AAVE in Chicago around 1912.

Okay (OK) – Though its origin is debated, strong evidence traces it to West African languages (e.g., Wolof waw kay) via enslaved Gullah speakers.

Hip/Hep – From Wolof hipi (to open one's eyes, to be aware), entering jazz slang in the early 1900s before going mainstream.

Hepcat – A compound of "hep" + "cat" (jazz slang for a person), literally meaning "one who has his eyes open" in West African-influenced jazz culture.

Jazz, Blues & 1940s–60s Era

Cool (as in fashionable/calm) – Originated in jazz circles, likely from saxophonist Lester Young, and entered mainstream via West African aesthetic concepts of composure.

Cat – A jazz-era term for a skilled musician or cool person, derived from West African-influenced jive talk.

Crib – Jazz slang for a house or apartment, popularized in the 1940s before becoming mainstream in the 1990s.

Hokum – AAVE slang for nonsense or BS, used in blues and jazz before being adopted more widely.

Diss – Short for "disrespect," coined in AAVE and popularized through hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bad (meaning good) – From AAVE, where inversion of meaning creates emphasis (something so "bad" it's actually good), used since early jazz era.

Jive – AAVE slang for deceptive talk or a style of jazz dancing, used by Cab Calloway in his 1930s Hepster Dictionary.

1970s–90s (Hip-Hop & Pre-Internet Era)

Homeboy/Homegirl – AAVE for a close friend from one's neighborhood, popularized in hip-hop and later shortened to "homes" in casual speech.

Dope (meaning great) – Shifted from "stupid" in standard English to "excellent" in AAVE during the 1980s hip-hop era.

Props – Short for "proper respects" in AAVE, used in hip-hop to acknowledge skill or achievement before entering mainstream slang.

Word (as in "I agree") – AAVE interjection ("Word!" or "Word is bond") meaning "I'm telling the truth," derived from Nation of Islam teachings.

Phat (meaning cool/great) – AAVE acronym believed to stand for "Pretty Hot And Tempting," though likely an invented backronym; popularized in 90s hip-hop.

The Bomb – AAVE phrase for something excellent or top-quality, widely used in hip-hop lyrics before mainstream adoption.

Def – AAVE slang for "excellent," popularized by Run-DMC's "King of Rock" and 80s hip-hop culture.

Fresh – AAVE for stylish or excellent, used in early hip-hop and 80s pop culture before spreading globally.

Wack – AAVE for "bad, inferior, uncool," popularized in hip-hop and later mainstream youth speech as the opposite of "cool."

Hella – AAVE intensifier meaning "very" or "a lot of," originating in Oakland/Bay Area AAVE in the 1970s-80s.

Cap / No Cap – AAVE meaning "lie" and "no lie," popularized by Bay Area rap in the 2010s, derived from "capping" (exaggerating).

1990s–2000s (Internet Adoption & Ballroom Culture)

Slay – From AAVE and Black ballroom culture (Paris is Burning, 1990), meaning to do something extremely well, now mainstream via social media.

Spill the Tea – From AAVE (originally "spill the T," with "T" meaning truth), popularized by drag culture and Black queer communities.

Shade (as in insult) – From Black ballroom culture (documented in Paris is Burning), meaning a subtle insult, now used broadly in pop culture.

Reading (as in insulting) – From ballroom culture ("reading" someone), meaning to publicly insult with wit, immortalized in Paris is Burning.

Kiki – AAVE from ballroom culture meaning a casual gathering for gossip or chatting, later mainstreamed through pop music (e.g., Kesha).

Fierce – AAVE and ballroom term meaning exceptionally good or intense, applied to fashion, performance, or attitude.

Woke – From AAVE meaning socially and politically aware, first used in 1940s Black activism before resurging with Black Lives Matter.

Shook – AAVE meaning startled or upset, used in 1990s New York hip-hop (e.g., Mobb Deep) before mainstream adoption in the 2010s.

On Fleek – AAVE phrase meaning perfectly executed, coined in a 2014 Vine by Peaches Monroee, one of the last pre-AI viral AAVE innovations.

Finna – From AAVE contraction of "fixing to" (preparing to), documented in Southern AAVE for decades before wider use and dictionary recognition.

Chile – A phonetic spelling of "child" in Southern AAVE, used as a term of endearment or exclamation since at least the 1970s (The Wiz, 1978).

2010s–Present (Social Media & Gen Z Slang Pipeline)

Lit – AAVE meaning exciting or excellent (originally "intoxicated" or "on fire"), popularized in hip-hop before becoming a Gen Z staple.

Bae – AAVE term of endearment meaning "before anyone else" or just a shortened form of "babe/baby," mainstreamed in the 2010s.

Ratchet – AAVE originally meaning a rowdy, aggressive woman (from "wretched"), later used to describe anything wild or out of control.

Turnt – AAVE meaning excited or intoxicated, from "turned up" in hip-hop lyrics, mainstreamed in early 2010s party slang.

Clap Back – AAVE for a sharp, witty comeback or retaliation, popularized in hip-hop (e.g., Ja Rule's 2003 song "Clap Back") before internet slang.

Bussin' – AAVE meaning delicious or excellent, applied to food or anything great, popularized on TikTok in the 2020s.

Sus – AAVE shortening of "suspicious" or "shady," used for decades before Among Us made it a global meme in 2020.

Snatched – AAVE originally describing flawless hair/makeup or a tight waist, now used to praise anything perfectly executed.

Periodt – AAVE emphatic form of "period" (meaning "end of discussion"), with a hard "t" for emphasis, popularized on Black Twitter before global use.

Bonus: My personal favorite AAVE term that I see used online religiously is receipts! AAVE meaning the proof shown to back up an accustation

[lichenaday]

What's the difference between lichen and fungus, like mushrooms? Thank you.

Hoo boy, that's the question, huh?

So, fungi are a lot of things. "Fungi" is an entire kingdom of life, like "Plantae" (plants) or "Animalia" animals. Consider how much diversity there is within those 2 groups, and now shift your perception of what a fungi can look like to that level of complexity. In, say, animals, those complex differences are pretty obvious when looking at like, a clam vs a honeybee vs a crocodile vs a human. But in fungi, most of that complexity isn't super visible to the human eye because most fungi are small and cryptic, so it gets overlooked even though the diversity is there.

"Mushrooms" are the fruiting bodies of basidiomycete fungi: just one division of the entire fungal kingdom. A fruiting body is like, well, a fruit! It is a reproductive structure that releases spores, which are like the seeds of plants. These structures are attached to a "mycelium," a connected network of fungal hyphea (long filaments containing fungal cells). Think of the mycelium as like, the trunk of a tree, and the mushroom as an apple.

Not all fungi have a mycelium (the same way not all plants have a trunk)--many are unicellular organisms, and others have simpler body plans, and some (like lichens) have more complicated body plans.

Besides basidiomycete mushrooms, ascomycete fungi produce mostly "cup-shaped" fruiting bodies, often referred to as "mushrooms" even though they aren't technically mushrooms. Confused yet? Stick with me. What is a lichen? Lichenization (a fungus forming a symbiotic relationship with a photosynthesizing organism) is a lifestyle trait more than it is a distinct group. While most "lichens" are ascomycete fungi, there are some basidiomycete fungi that have lichenized as well. It is a way for a fungi (we call it the mycobiont) to basically "farm" algae and/or cyanobacteria (we call these the photobionts) to harvest energy from, and in return the mycobiont provides the photobiont with a safe environment.

Most lichens have "apothecia" as seen in the picture above: the cup-shaped fruiting bodies often found in the ascomycete fungi. BUT some (very few) lichens actually *have* mushrooms because they are a symbiosis between an algae and a mushroom-producing fungi (basidiomycete):

SO to conclude: --Fungi is a diverse kingdom of life --Mushrooms are a reproductive structure of a specific lineage of fungi --Lichens are a symbiotic organism made up of a fungus and a photosynthesizing organism (algae and/or cyanobacteria) --Most lichenized fungi are ascomycetes, but some are basidiomycetes --You can think of lichenization as a lifestyle as opposed to a specific group

Fungi are complicated and difficult and confusing, and wonderful and beautifully complex and endlessly fascinating!

[modern-american-usage]

momentarily. Strictly speaking, this word means “for a moment,” not “in a moment.” But the latter sense is widespread, and the word has therefore become ambiguous - e.g.: “I’ll be able to talk with you momentarily.” When the latter sense is meant, it is much clearer to say, “I’ll be able to talk with you in a moment.” Cf. presently.

[modern-american-usage]

fluid; liquid; gas. Nonscientists often confuse these terms. A fluid is any substance that is capable of flowing and that changes shape under pressure; in other words, a fluid is not a solid. Fluids include both liquids and gases. A liquid is a fluid that has a fixed volume (such as water or oil). A gas is a fluid that can expand indefinitely (such as oxygen or steam). Although these words should be kept distinct in scientific contexts, fluid is sometimes used as a loose synonym of liquid in nontechnical writing <bodily fluids>.

[modern-american-usage]

rarefaction /rair-ə-fak-shən/ = (1) the act or process of making less dense; the state of being less dense; or (2) the act or process of purifying, the state of being purified. The forms *rarefication, rarification, and rarifaction are all erroneous.

[modern-american-usage]

prodigality; profligacy. The former means “lavishness, extravagance.” The latter means primarily “given to overindulgence in vice, licentiousness,” but it also shares the sense of the former.

[modern-american-usage]

Cummings, E. E. The poet Edward Estlin Cummings (1894—1962), a shy man, early in his career used the word i for the first person singular pronoun. (This habit, now commonplace in Internet exchanges, was highly unusual.) Cummings’s critics then began referring to him sarcastically in print as e.e. cummings … Norman Friedman, the founder and then president of the E.E. Cummings Society, summed up the poet’s “philosophy of typography” this way: that he could use caps and lower case as he wished, but that when others referred to him by name they ought to use caps.” Spring: The Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society, 1992, at 114–21. Nor is it true that Cummings legally changed his name to lowercase letters. That story appeared in the preface to a biography about Cummings, but his widow angrily denied it.

[modern-american-usage]

proscribe; prescribe. Proscribe = to prohibit. Prescribe = to impose authoritatively. But some writers apparently think that proscribe is simply a fancier form of prescribe.

Sometimes, but much less often, the opposite error occurs—e.g.: “Most of the rules of grammar have no real justification and there is therefore no serious reason for condemning the ‘errors’ they prescribe [read proscribe].” Frank Palmer, Grammar 14 (1971). Given the ability and reputation of Mr. Palmer, that instance is almost certainly a printer’s error.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

TIL via hollywood, ending copyediting that "E. E. Cummings" can be safely capitalized, as it was a publisher who rendered his name lowercase, not E. E. himself.

[deerman-limerence]

critics initially started putting the name in lower case letters as a way of mocking him for not capitalizing “i.” then a story saying that he’d legally changed his name to e.e. cummings was written in an introduction to one of his biographies, which his widow angrily disputed. so I think capitalizing the name is more respectful.

source: Bryan A. Garner’s Modern American Usage (2009)

[modern-american-usage]

monotonous; monotonic. Although these terms have an overlapping sense - “having little or no variation in tone” - they have undergone substantial DIFFERENTIATION. Monotonous is now predominantly figurative, meaning tediously lacking in variety; uninteresting because unvarying.” Monotonic should be reserved for the literal sense “of, relating to, or consisting of a single tone.”

[modern-american-usage]

abandonment; abandon, n. In most contexts, abandonment (= the permanent relinquishment of any right or interest in a thing) is the noun that answers to the verb abandon. But in one particular idiom, abandon is the required noun: wild abandon or reckless abandon (= unrestrained impulsiveness). The SOED dates the noun abandon (= surrender to natural impulses; freedom from constraint or convention) back to the early 19th century. And it records abandonment as sharing this sense from the mid-19th century. Still, abandon is so preponderant in this idiom that the two terms ought to be distinguished. In the following sentences, abandon better accords with modern usage:

“Like a ventriloquist, the President put these words in the mouth of Dr. King: ‘I did not fight for the right of black people to murder other black people with reckless abandonment [read abandon].’” H. Bruce Franklin, “What King Really Would Have Said,” Phil. Inquirer, 7 Dec. 1993, A17.

”But that verb-drenched, Crazy-Horse-Meets-Allman-Brothers-Band jamming, as precise as it is full of wild abandonment [read abandon] is one great machine at work.” Jeff Spevak, “My Morning Jacket One Great Machine,” Rochester Democrat & Chron., 16 Sept. 2002, at C2.

“He walks straight into his boss’s office, quits his job, goes on a pension and dives into a life of wild abandonment [read abandon], partying, drinking, taking drugs,” David Wroe, “I Choose to Be a Victim,” The Age, 30 Nov. 2002, at 10.