A new dictionary featuring “African-American” words will be coming out in two years and a report has revealed the first 10 words in the new book.
As NBC News reported Wednesday, Oxford University Press announced last June they planned to publish the “Oxford Dictionary of African American English.”
The New York Times published the first 10 words and their definitions in late May.
Here they are:
bussin (adjective and participle): 1. Especially describing food: tasty, delicious. Also more generally: impressive, excellent. 2. Describing a party, event, etc.: busy, crowded, lively. (Variant forms: bussing, bussin’.)
grill (noun): A removable or permanent dental overlay, typically made of silver, gold or another metal and often inset with gemstones, which is worn as jewelry.
Promised Land (n.): A place perceived to be where enslaved people and, later, African Americans more generally, can find refuge and live in freedom. (Etymology: A reference to the biblical story of Jewish people seeking freedom from Egyptian bondage.)
chitterlings (n. plural): A dish made from pig intestines that are typically boiled, fried or stuffed with other ingredients. Occasionally also pig intestines as an ingredient. (Variant forms: chitlins, chittlins, chitlings, chitterlins.)
kitchen (n.): The hair at the nape of the neck, which is typically shorter, kinkier and considered more difficult to style.
cakewalk (n.): 1. A contest in which Black people would perform a stylized walk in pairs, typically judged by a plantation owner. The winner would receive some type of cake. 2. Something that is considered easily done, as in This job is a cakewalk.
old school (adj.): Characteristic of early hip-hop or rap music that emerged in New York City between the late 1970s to the mid 1980s, which often includes the use of couplets, funk and disco samples, and playful lyrics. Also used to describe the music and artists of that style and time period. (Variant form: old skool.)
pat (verb): 1. transitive. To tap (the foot) in rhythm with music, sometimes as an indication of participation in religious worship. 2. intransitive. Usually of a person’s foot: to tap in rhythm with music, sometimes to demonstrate participation in religious worship.
Aunt Hagar’s children (n.): A reference to Black people collectively. (Etymology: Probably a reference to Hagar in the Bible, who, with her son, Ishmael, was cast out by Sarah and Abraham [Ishmael’s father], and became, among some Black communities, the symbolic mother of all Africans and African Americans and of Black womanhood.)
ring shout (n.): A spiritual ritual involving a dance where participants follow one another in a ring shape, shuffling their feet and clapping their hands to accompany chanting and singing. The dancing and chanting gradually intensify and often conclude with participants exhibiting a state of spiritual ecstasy.
Sources linked to Oxford University Press told the New York Times 100 words have already been selected and the project will be completed by March 2025.
Infamous Barack Obama friend Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a scholar of African American history at Harvard University, was hired to serve as the project’s editor.
As long-time Gateway Pundit readers know, Gates was at the center of a major political controversy in July 2009. The professor was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by local police officer Sgt. James Crowley, who was responding to reports of people breaking into the home.
Gates had just returned from a trip to China and was unable to unlock his front door and had to enter the back way. He then exited the house and forced open the front door with his driver’s help. When Crowley arrived to confront Gates, the professor accused the cop of racism and yelled at him for several minutes.
Obama claimed afterward in a press conference that “the police acted stupidly.” A national uproar resulted following Obama’s comments with Cambridge police demanding an apology.
Gates bragged about refashioning “the English language” while speaking with the Times. He also revealed the words would be added to the Oxford English dictionary as well.
Everybody has an urgent need for self-expression. You need to be able to communicate what you feel and what you think to other people in your speech community… That is why we refashioned the English language.
That is the best of both worlds. Because we want to show how Black English is part of the larger of Englishes, as they say, spoken around the world.
