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1:08

Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty

1:10

and today I'm here with Dr.

1:12

Sanja Lanehart, professor of linguistics at

1:14

the University of Arizona, the author

1:16

of the Oxford Handbook of African

1:19

American Language, and more recently, a

1:21

member of the advisory board for

1:23

the Oxford Dictionary of African American

1:25

English, which is eagerly anticipated and

1:27

coming out in the spring of

1:29

2025. Today we're

1:31

talking about how they're making that dictionary

1:34

and some of the first entries,

1:36

including Kitchen, Antegar's Children,

1:39

and DoReg. And

1:41

a quick note, we had some technical

1:43

problems with the interview, so this is

1:45

a slightly pared down edited version, but

1:48

if you want to watch the whole

1:50

thing, you can find it on my

1:52

YouTube channel at youtube.com/Grammar Girl. Thank

1:58

you for being here, Dr. Lanehart. Thank you,

2:00

it's my pleasure. I've been looking forward to it.

2:03

Yeah, I have so many

2:05

questions. So I know when I look

2:07

at the main Oxford English Dictionary, there

2:09

are some sources that they get a

2:11

lot of the citations

2:14

from, like people mailed in snippets

2:16

with Shakespeare on it and stuff.

2:18

Are there big sources like that

2:20

for the project that you're working

2:22

on? So the sources that

2:25

we're using, I don't

2:27

know how familiar you are, there's

2:29

a long history of African-American newspapers

2:31

in this country, especially in the

2:34

19th century, 18th century, so there's

2:36

a long history of those newspapers,

2:38

but also there's a rich literary

2:41

history. So there's

2:43

that to use as well. We just

2:45

met like a week or so ago

2:47

and we were talking about Zora Neale

2:49

Hurston and how Zora

2:52

Neale Hurston has applied a lot

2:55

of the def... In

2:58

some cases, she supplied the word and

3:01

she supplied the sort of etymology for

3:03

it. As you know,

3:05

she was a great anthropologist and

3:07

so she's provided a great source, especially

3:10

for the part of the world that

3:12

she was looking at language in African-American

3:14

communities. But definitely from

3:16

newspapers, from magazines, from

3:19

literary figures and researchers and scholars

3:21

like Zora Neale Hurston and

3:24

from music. So

3:26

music is another great source to

3:29

find how African-American language is used in

3:31

getting those citations. And as you can

3:34

imagine, especially we

3:36

just celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip hop,

3:38

there are a lot of attestations when we're

3:40

looking at hip hop and rap music as

3:43

well. I did not know

3:45

about the history of a black newspaper.

3:48

Can you talk about that? Yeah,

3:50

there is definitely that long history.

3:53

And part of it, you can think

3:55

of black communities needing to have resources

3:57

for their communities because otherwise it wasn't.

3:59

going to be covered by white newspapers

4:02

and doing stories on black figures and

4:04

things that are going on in black

4:06

communities in which the larger white community

4:08

would not have been interested in or

4:10

would have been reporting in very different ways.

4:13

Right? So there are lots of period ... There's

4:15

a long periodical history of these newspapers, but

4:18

there are also magazines as well. Now,

4:20

of course, I'm familiar with some of

4:22

the more 20th century magazines like Jet

4:27

and that sort of thing. But before

4:29

those started, there's one here,

4:31

Freedom's Journal, that was founded in 1827. That's

4:35

the oldest one. One

4:37

the Chicago Defender, which was founded

4:40

by Robert Abbott. That

4:42

was 1905 and was once heralded itself

4:44

as the world's greatest weekly. There

4:47

is a long history. Let's

4:50

put it that way in terms of black.

4:52

The North Star was one. That's

4:55

the one that was founded by Frederick Douglass in 1847.

5:00

Nice. Yes. So,

5:02

the Liberator was one ... Oh,

5:06

that's what I was trying to think of, William Lloyd

5:08

Garrison. There were

5:10

some earlier ones, very early

5:12

when we go back that far and talking about the

5:15

early 19th century, those

5:18

were clearly geared towards

5:21

liberation. Some

5:24

of blacks in the country, so

5:26

very much along that sort of

5:29

anti-slavery type, abolitionist

5:31

type publications. But

5:33

yeah, lots of them

5:35

have been digitized or in the process of

5:37

being digitized, so you can go on in

5:39

particular spaces and find

5:42

these newspapers because that's a whole line

5:44

of inquiry that people use. So,

5:47

yeah, actually over breakfast, I was talking with my

5:49

husband and I was telling him that the dictionary's

5:51

coming out in about a year and they've been

5:53

working on it for quite a while and said,

5:55

well, what takes so long? And I was kind

5:58

of indignant on your behalf. That.

19:21

Credit this year to say yes to a personal loan

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or line of credit and when other lenders say now

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apply in mans and a decision as soon as the

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same deck loans offered by neck creditor lenny partner banks

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and service find. That credit application subject to

19:32

review and approval. Home More and Neck

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credit.com/partner Net Credit Credit The people. neighbors

26:00

recognize them as American citizens or

26:02

will they endeavor to drive us

26:05

back colonizes? Oh

26:07

okay so that makes sense. Yeah

26:10

it looks like even a Zora Neil

26:13

Hurston used this in mules and

26:15

men on page

26:18

134 she said, Laud Willard

26:21

said bitterly, my people my

26:23

people as the monkey said you

26:25

fool with Aunt Hagar's chillin' and

26:27

they'll show, discriminate you and put your

26:30

name in the streets. It

26:34

has a very literary feel. Yes

26:37

it's nice. Oh

26:39

I like this one from 1938 in Esquire. Twix

26:43

Uncle Ham's Sunny Boys and

26:45

Aunt Hagar's Daughters. Daughters?

26:49

Nice. Yeah

26:51

so but yeah

26:54

that was one I'd never heard that before and

26:56

so you know this person grew up with it

26:58

and knew it quite well. Yeah

27:02

I mean they're sayings from other parts

27:04

of the country that I haven't heard

27:06

of either I mean you're right

27:08

we're a big country so um what are

27:10

what are some of the other words? Some

27:14

other words oh okay

27:17

so I had a conversation with someone

27:20

about this recently which

27:22

was a word that I didn't I

27:25

I don't think I'd heard it but

27:28

I think it has slightly different meanings maybe

27:30

in the south than it does in other

27:32

parts of the country

27:34

because I've asked people about it and they seem to know

27:36

it and that's bussin do

27:39

you know this word bussin? I

27:41

think so it was we actually covered it

27:43

maybe maybe a few

27:45

months ago in the podcast does it

27:48

mean tasty food? It can mean yeah

27:50

it can mean that and

27:52

I I had never heard this

27:55

but it it means describing something

27:57

that's impressive or excellent. take

40:00

it away from the hairdo,

40:03

right, H-A-I-R-D-O, rag, that

40:06

it came from to just the fact

40:08

that this is a pronunciation for it.

40:10

And so our discussion was, which word

40:12

do we include? Or

40:14

which head word do we include? And I

40:16

was just like, it has to be D-O

40:18

in rag, right, do rag, because

40:21

that's where it comes from. Now, part of what

40:23

makes it get the head word is, which

40:26

one is the most popular? Well,

40:29

historically, the D-O is going to be

40:31

the most popular right now. But as

40:33

time goes on, and

40:36

people are using social media or whatever

40:38

is going to come into the future,

40:40

that may surpass what is

40:42

the etymological connection to the spelling

40:44

of D-O, and that spelling may

40:46

become something else. So

40:48

in 20 years from now, it

40:51

could be that that head word has

40:53

to change, and the D-O spelling becomes

40:55

an alternate instead of the head word,

40:57

just because of how we are measuring

40:59

language now and being able to see

41:02

this, and we'll have more attestations. But

41:05

this is why having a historical

41:07

dictionary is important, because the historical

41:10

dictionary will be able to track

41:12

that, and it will provide

41:14

that evidentiary trail for

41:16

you to see what has

41:18

happened over the period of time.

41:21

So I'm kind of looking forward to that. Right, as

41:23

you were saying that I was thinking about the Oxford

41:25

English Dictionary, where you see, you know, there's the head

41:27

word, but then you can see like the older spellings

41:29

that are there. It

41:32

happens with all of them. So at some point, one

41:35

of those words would have actually been the head word.

41:37

But yeah, I

41:40

think that's really cool. That

41:44

is very cool. I know, I was

41:46

thinking, I think it comes from hairdo,

41:48

but then it...

41:51

Well, thank you so much for talking with

41:53

me today. This was just delightful, and truly,

41:55

I can't wait to read it when it

41:57

comes out, which is going to be in about

41:59

a year. in the spring of 2025. And

42:04

again, Dr. Sanja Lanehart from

42:06

the University of Arizona. Thank

42:09

you for being here with us today.

42:11

Thank you so much for having me.

42:13

And I look forward, as well as

42:15

you, I'm waiting for the

42:17

dictionary to come out and to be able to share that

42:20

and teach it. That's gonna be lovely.

42:25

I hope you enjoyed that as much as

42:27

I did. I'll catch you back here on

42:29

Tuesday when I have a segment about when

42:31

to use that versus which, and a fun

42:34

segment about words for walking, including traips and

42:36

sachet. That's

42:38

all. Thanks for listening. That.

42:47

Credit this year to say yes to a personal loan

42:49

or line of credit and when other lenders say now

42:51

apply in mans and a decision as soon as the

42:54

same deck loans offered by neck creditor lenny partner banks

42:56

and service find. That credit application subject to

42:58

review and approval. Home More and Neck

43:00

credit.com/partner Net Credit Credit The people. you

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