THE HISTORY OF PHAT.

January 16, 2003 by languagehat 3 Comments

A particularly welcome section from a Merriam-Webster page of excerpts from Flappers 2 Rappers, a history of youth slang by Tom Dalzell. [Via Prentiss Riddle.]

Comments

Songdog says

January 16, 2003 at 9:31 am

There’s a lot of interesting stuff over there! Their explanation of “phat” got me wondering about the origins of “def,” but I guess I’ll have to buy their book to learn more :).
Prentiss Riddle says

January 16, 2003 at 8:03 pm

For those of you having trouble looking up the book, it’s “Flappers 2 Rappers”. Ugh. (At least it’s not “Ph14px0rz 2 R4px0rz”, so I suppose we should be grateful.)
language hat says

January 16, 2003 at 8:43 pm

Oops! Oh well, if they click on the link they’ll get to the right place…

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THE HISTORY OF PHAT.

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