The Oxford English Dictionary is not just your great-great-grandfather's dictionary anymore!
I'm amazed to report that on Thursday, May 1, 2003 the North American unit of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) said that "bling-bling".... let me repeat: "BLING-BLING"!!!... is under active consideration for inclusion into that most notoriously stuffy historical lexicon.
For those of you who have been living under a rock in a southern white-supremacist compound, bling-bling is a catch-all term encompassing the idealized lifestlye of popular urban culture. A definition offered by Oliver Moore of the Globe & Mail describes bling-bling as "Coined to describe the big, gaudy jewellery worn by some rap stars, 'bling-bling' is a style statement that takes some nerve to pull off - a kind of in-your-face confidence not normally associated with dictionary editors". This is exactly the sort of description I would expect from a middle-aged corporate whitey who, based on his extensive observation (and misplaced sense of understanding) of youth culture, considers himself an in-touch young-at-heart hipster.
No offense to Ollie, I don't really know anything about the guy, but I'd still feel more comfortable consulting a few experts in the field.
Check out these little sound-bytes, courtesy of the Cash Money Crew (one-hit wonders of the aptly titled Bling-Bling):
"Bling bling
Pinky ring worth about fifty
Bling bling
Every time I buy a new ride
Bling bling
Lorinsers on Yokahama tires
Bling bling"
- L'il Wayne
Eloquent. And while the precise definition remains tentative, the word could be added to the OED within a year or two. But will it actually happen? It certainly seems that way according to Jesse Sheidlower, an OED editor based in New York.
“If it were in use just for a year or so and then totally vanished, I think we probably wouldn’t bother,” he said, “[but] my expectation is that it will go in.”
Not only that, but "once it’s in, it never comes out.” That's right. Bling-bling will forever be carved upon the walls of history of the English language, no longer a graffiti stain. Legitimized. Solidified. Eternalized. Deftly holding it's precarious place between blind and blink.
"Medallion iced up, Rolex bezelled up
And my pinky ring is platinum plus
Earrings be trillion cut
And my grill be slugged up
Stack my cheese up
'Cause one day I'ma give this street life up"
- Baby
If you find the ramifications of that a little disconcerting, you're not alone. Adding new words to the OED has always had its controversies. Many an angry phonecall and scathing letter hath been sent off in a fury, as "pundits and professors" cite the dilution of the language and start sounding the death knell. Regardless, Mr. Sheidlower aloofly guides us in a tour of some strange editors' version of the journalistic code. Don't shoot the messenger he reminds us.
“All we would need to do to be considering it, as we are now, is just to say ‘Look, this is common, editors are aware of it,’ and we might draft an entry for it,” he said. “With a word that’s quite this new, we would wait another year or so … just to make sure that it’s not completely ephemeral. But a word doesn’t have to be very long-lasting for us to put it in — we’re a historical dictionary, our purpose is to show words that have been part of the English language, not necessarily words that are right now.”
He goes on to describe how the OED is in a state of constant revision with over a 1000 new words, and 6000 revised words, each year. These updates are posted quarterly in the online edition of the dictionary. With an enrollment of 1000 new words a year, just how hard is it for a young, black idiom in America to receive an acceptance letter? Apparently, bling-bling is a shoe-in, and it has nothing to do with affirmative action.
“A term that has a reasonable number of examples from a wide variety of sources is going to be likely to be added. There aren’t any precise numbers that I can give, but a term like ‘bling-bling’ — it may come from rap music, but it’s widespread now in a variety of media — is likely to be added.”
"A lil' nigga seventeen, playin' with six figures
Got so much ice you can skate on a nigga
1999, and it's our turn to shine
Fifty or better on our wrist and they all blind
Pourin' vodka 'til I die, drink 'til I faint
'Til a nigga tell me I need another drink"
- L'il Turk *Not to be confused with L'il Turk of NATO fame
A seemingly random freelance writer named Andrew Rickard, backs up Jimmy's sentiments, by adding that while it's "saddening...one can't really hold the folks at the OED responsible. They didn't unleash the term on the unsuspecting public, they're simply acknowledging the fact that the word exists and is widely used". And he has a point. If the Queen Mother was still with us, bless her soul, rest assured she wouldn't need Prince William to explain. The word has leaked into all streams of pop culture, and you will hear it fall awkwardly from the lips of forty-somethings who have only just recently quit dancing the Macarena.
"It's the nigga with tha Lex bubble
Candy coated helicopter with tha leather cover
Balla, Manny bought a private plane
Then turned around and sold that bitch to Juve and Wayne
They put 30 inch Lorenzos on that thing, man
I know you niggaz out there just don't understand"
- Manny Fresh
But that's just it, all them "niggaz out there" DO understand. Them wiggers too. And their kid brothers. And their soccer moms. That's why this is happening. In a democratic society the erosion of culture is perpetrated by the mindless masses, spoonfed by the media, and the result is excrement like "bling-bling" smeared across the news pages and worse, the Oxford English Dictionary. I leave you with more philosophical musings by today's great artists.
"Booted up, diamond up
Golds be shinin' up
Mothafuckas be blindin' up"
- Juvenile
Oh, and before I go.... Any comments? What do you think? I've just added script for facilitating feedback (like I've seen on nicer blogs than mine), and want to hear what the word is on the street about this hot, topical issue. So drop a line.
And I'll bust a dope poetry rhyme a la Khalil Gibran. Or maybe next time.
"I be that nigga with the ice on me
If it cost less than twenty, it don't look right on me
I stay flossed out all through the week
My money long, if you don't know, I'm the B.G.
Diamonds worn by everybody that's in my clique
Man, I got the price of a mansion 'round my neck and wrist
My nigga Baby gettin' a special built machine
A Mercedes Benz 700 V14
I know you niggaz can't believe that
I can't wait to see ya haters' face when ya see that
Man, look at that
Niggaz wear shades just to stand on side of me
Folks say, 'Take that chain off, boy, ya blindin' me'
All day my phone ringin', bling bling bling
Can see my earring from a mile, bling bling"
- B.G.
Source Material:
Globe & Mail, "'Bling-bling' on track to OED", 05/01/03
