Actually 'the dozens' - challenging, mocking and insulting - goes all the
way back to West Africa - they be ancient.
Once called "toasts" in the USA - very popular verb sport among blacks in
prisons.
In the late fifties, when I was the only white guy on the basketball team, I
was drowning in the dozens.
"Heah, LeRoy, your mama is like a big plate of apple pie!
Everybody gets a slice!"
Poor "mama" took it left, right and center.
I always thought that famous image by the black woman artist - whose name I
forget at the moment - on the Aunt Jemima pancake flour box - spatula raised
high in the air ready to jump out of the box and swat somebody down - was
aimed at the "dozen's" makers, as much as any white evil somebody else.
Stephen
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> I am delighted to discover that "snaps" and "snapping" have quite
> another meaning in the context of "playing the dozens" - the exchange
> of verbal insult widely considered to be a precursor to the MC battle
> in hip-hop:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_momma
>
> Incidentally, I love it that wikipedia has an entry for "yo momma".
>
> Dominic
> --
> Shall we be pure or impure? Today
> we shall be very pure. It must always
> be possible to contain
> impurities in a pure way.
> --Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
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