Dear Readers:
Doc’s alter ego, Buff Bookman, has taken the Poynter Online world by storm. Not since the advent of, well, Dr. Ink, have we seen the raves that have greeted the Bookster:
“I’d share a foxhole with Buff, any night,” coos Susan Sarandon.
“He makes me laugh!” explains Donald Rumsfeld.
Now Doc is “old skool,” as most of his readers know, but Buff brings out the hipster in him. Especially, with Buff’s latest book selection. Take it away, Buff.
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Thanks, Doc. I owe all this to you, man.
Buff’s Rating: Four BicepsToday’s featured book is called the “Hip Hoptionary: The Dictionary of Hip Hop Terminology.” It is compiled by Alonzo Westbrook. This useful and entertaining reference work contains 225 pages in a paperback edition published in 2002 by Harlem Moon, an offprint of Broadway Books. Buff paid $12.95.
The English language gains new words all the time. The linguists call these “neologisms,” and they enter the language through many different paths. They can be variations of existing words or something never seen or heard before. They often enter through the basement door of new or marginalized subcultures, carried in the brains and on the tongues of immigrants, inventors, teens, artists, and outlaws.
It has been often joked that a sign of cross-cultural influence in America is that the best golfer in the nation is black, and that the best rapper is white. The pervasive influence of hip-hop culture on America is chronicled in this dictionary, which not only defines word and terminologies (old skool and new), but also offers a section that converts standard English words to “slanguage.” A list of the most influential hip-hop cultural figures of the last 20 years is the caboose on this train.
Here’s a quiz to test your hip-hop fluency:
As they say in hip-hop: ABC-ya!
