Ebonics: A new African Tribal language

There are times when I am reminded just why I call the town I live in "Crackerville."
Yeah, there are plenty of Shania-loving, squirrel-hunting, big belt-buckle wearing, pick-up truck driving, rednecks dotsey-dowing their way around town, but the lack of knowledge of the outside world still amazes me. Take this exchange, which I had at work, with a supposedly knowledgable and educated person.
Me: "Collar-popping (see story below) is just slang. It's like ebonics."
Cracker: "Ebonics? Isn't that some african tribal language?"
Me: (blank stare)
Cracker: "But I thought that's what they spoke on the ebony coast."
Me: "Uhhh, no. It's a scientic term for the speech used by many black, inner-city denizens."
Cracker: "So it's not african?"
Me: Hell, naw, son. Fo sho it ain't... ya'll better take your budonk back to skizzle and gets real learned about what's real. Word.
Cracker: (blank stare)

Anyways, what prompted this little converstation was a story about "collar-popping." Sometimes, it's great being the gate-keeper over what people do, and do not see, in our paper. So here's what's in today's paper, complete with a lil sketch of E-40 himself.
Collar-popping, of course.

NYET446_FINAL_FOUR_POPPI_143205
Originally uploaded by smoove_J.

Courtesy of XXL magazine - E-40 poppin collars.


California rapper deserves credit for NCAA tournament gesture
By Tamara Palmer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - When college basketball players pluck the front of their jerseys after victories big and small, they should also give a few props to E-40. The shirt-tugging gesture may be going mainstream thanks to the NCAA tournament, but hip-hop fans recognize it as a stylistic expression that has permeated the culture for years. ”Nowadays,” says E-40, the platinum-selling rapper who popularized the move, “it means either congratulating yourself or saluting a person and saying, `I acknowledge you.’ But really, poppin’ your collar is like when you’re standing in the mirror getting dressed and you’re fixing your collar. We pull on our sleeves, we jack our slacks and we pop our collar. ”A lot of people’s granddaddies did it, but there wasn’t a name for it,” E-40 continues from his hometown of Vallejo, 40 kilometres northeast of San Francisco. “It’s embroidered in us here in the Bay Area. We do it automatically and it’s not a gimmick. I’ve been doing it in all my videos since I first began rapping and putting music on the shelves in 1987.” Since then, the slang-tastic rapper born Earl Stevens has had a number of his expressions borrowed by top stars. Snoop Dogg acknowledges him as the source of his ‘shizzle’ speak, while Usher copied the E-40 song title Pop Ya Collar. (In the 2000 original, E-40 says he’s been “’poppin’ my collar since Moby was a goldfish.’” E-40 is not surprised to see his signature gesture make its way into sports. To him, it’s a natural outgrowth of the meshing of sports and hip-hop - two worlds that thrive on braggadocio and self-congratulation. When the players pop their collars, “it’s like a celebration, a victory dance,” E-40 says. “They’re saying, `Recognize this, recognize what I just did. I just dunked on the tallest player in this game!”