ABSTRACT
The African-American vernacular English (AA VEl lexiconl reflects the dynamic, colorful span of language used by African Americans from all walks of life. There are unique English words and expressions among all segments of the community - from the young to the old; from Baptists to members of the Nation of Islam; from political activists to street people. When it comes to AA VE, the "boyz in the hood" do not have a comer on the market. To be sure, the urban Black youth culture that embraces Rap Music, graffiti, "Def Comedy Jam," "MTV," and baggy pants, i.e., Hip Hop, has contributed unique idioms and terms like def and dope to refer to something that is superb. But it was the senior Black women (aged 65+) in our research who had us all dying laughing when we finally understood what membership in the Packer's Club means: "a reference to older men who can't maintain an erection" and thus try, as one of the women put it, to "pack it in like chitlins." (Chitlins are 'the intestines of the hog, a delicacy that requires extensive cleaning and long hours of cooking before they can be eaten'.) Through the explosion of African-American comedy into contemporary mass culture, we made the acquaintance of BeBe's kids 'badly misbehaved kids', and gangs like Los Angeles' Crips and Bloods have taught us more than we ever wanted to know about powerful weapons called AKs 'AKA 7 assault rifle' and Nines 'a nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol'. But the 1960s Black Freedom Struggle,2 reflected in the life and progressive ideas of Malcolm X, is the source of the Hip Hop fashion of wearing caps with a large
"X" emblazoned on them, appropriately deemed X caps in Hip Hop lingo. And many of the linguistic rituals in today's neighborhood basketball games, such as trash talkin 'boasting and negative talking about one's opponents so as to unnerve them', owe their genesis to alley ball 'basketball' players from the Old School (the 1960s and 1970s).
