http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/06/manute_bol_and_my_bad.htmlManute Bol and "my bad"Of all the many fascinating things I've read about Manute Bol this weekend, here's the most bizarre: a language blog written a few years ago suggested that
Bol might have been responsible for coining and/or spreading the phrase "my bad."(I'm not trying to be flip; for the really touching and moving version of Bol's legacy, please read The Post's obit, or Kevin Blackistone's column from South Africa.)The "my bad" item, written by British professor of linguistics Geoffrey K. Pullum (the co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) quotes one source who recalls first hearing "my bad" in the Bay Area in 1988, after Bol had joined the Golden State Warriors. And indeed, if you run an archives search on "basketball" and "my bad," the first three usages are all linked to Bol.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1989: When he throws a bad pass, he'll say, ''My bad'' instead of ''My fault,'' and now all the other players say the same thing.
USA Today, Jan. 27, 1989: After making a bad pass, instead of saying ''my fault,'' Manute Bol says, ''my bad.'' Now all the other Warriors say it too.
Sporting News, May 15, 1989: Bol says "my bad" when he means "my fault."
Now, I happen to doubt that Manute Bol's grammatical quirks could really have taken over the country. And a reader from P.G. County has already told me that he and his friends were using the phrase in middle school, well before '88.
By January of 1990, the St. Petersburg Times was quoting Dwayne Schintzius saying "Sorry, fellas, my bad." By the end of 1992, the Wisconsin State Journal was citing "my bad" in a story about high school trends, defining it as "'What you say if you mess up instead of my fault."
Still, it was apparently novel enough that by 1997, the Baltimore Sun's Andrew Ratner could write an entire story about the phrase and its use on urban basketball courts, reporting that it didn't appear in a 1994 glossary, "Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner," Ratner heard a guy on a basketball court use it in the heat of a game.
"My bad? It didn't take me long to realize he meant "my fault," which as a mode of apology apparently is as outdated as calling one's girlfriend his "steady."...
"My fault" sounds appropriately contrite. "My bad," which apparently is always said while thumping one's chest, is a more aggressive form of expressing regret. It is a perfect mode of apology for an era when people, especially pro athletes and politicians, are loath to apologize. If, as Erich Segal wrote in "Love Story" that "love is never having to say you're sorry," then "my bad" is the latest way of never having to say you're "sorry" either.
In the same year, the Chicago Tribune's Bob Greene wrote a column on the phrase, for which he contacted several linguistics professors, some of whom hadn't heard of "my bad." One of these professors, Larry Horn from Yale, "was under the impression that it was a slang phrase that began in inner city neighborhoods--during sports competition--and has begun to enter the wider language."
"It's been around for a while," Horn said. "The first time I heard it used was on 'ESPN SportsCenter,' where the anchors were talking over a videotape of someone fumbling or making an error. The anchor said 'My bad' in a sort of funny, joking way....
Does professor Horn think "My bad" will become a regular part of English usage?
"It's hard to tell," he said. "It's hard to predict which words or phrases will stick. 'Cool' is one example of a word that filled a need. It's been around since at least the 1940s--it probably began with jazz musicians. It filled a slot that no other word really filled. But 'My bad'? We already have 'My fault,' so I don't know if there's a real need for it."
Pullum acknowledges that the timing is perhaps a little off, and posits that possibly Bol originated the phrase during his early days at Cleveland State and Bridgeport U. in the early '80s, whence it spread. I think it's equally possible that Bol picked it up from being in P.G. County and helped bring it to California. But regardless, Nexis shows Bol as the first pro basketball player to regularly use "my bad," which is a wacky enough fact on its own.
(Via David Steele)By Dan Steinberg | June 19, 2010; 7:35 PM ET
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I thought he was going to be awesome in my young Basketball prognostication days.