I think what I'm doing is actually uniquely suited to studying slang etymology because to really understand what it means for something to spread online, you have to be online yourself.
By making it s'wonderful, you get the feeling of the ecstasy without the formality of saying, gee, it's wonderful, which is fine, but not like s'wonderful.
The word has two distinct pronunciations, she says, which signal entirely different meanings. The hard 'er' ending, she says, has historically been used as a weapon — a way of saying you are less than human. The soft 'a' ending, she says, is used within the Black community as a term of familiarity and even affection.
The word is doing a tremendous amount of work in American culture and society, and it's a problem that causes real harm to people. And one of the ways that we can actually address that problem with more than hand-wringing or more than shock is to actually understand how it works.
It's the most volatile word in the American language. It has been used to harm, to bond, to challenge, to unite, to separate. It's impossible to discuss American history, literature, and culture without it.
The word is doing a tremendous amount of work — it's marking race, it's marking power, it's marking intimacy, it's marking hatred, it's marking love. And what's extraordinary about it is that it can mark all those things simultaneously.
3mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
