Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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produced today in Appalachia, mostly as clear, very potent corn or grain alcohol. The
best way to make sure a batch of moonshine is safe to drink is to offer the seller a snort.
Songs:
- Big Bill Broonzy (Willie Lee Conley Broonzy)
- Ma Rainey (Gertrude Pridgett Rainey)
-
M O T H E R F U C K E R
colonies, but much less frequently and casually than it came into use among African
Americans. In the African American community, it morphed into bad motherfucker,
mean motherfucker, dirty motherfucker, etc., and came to mean someone or something
grudging respect.
This more relaxed attitude toward colorful language entered American English via the
cities and villages of Africa. In Nigerian village squares, for example, oral poets known
as ijala still use obscene jokes and stories to get the crowd laughing and cheering. 291
the mothers have cursed them seek help from healers who brandish iron staffs topped
with sculpted birds. The bird represents both the mind of the healer and a warning to the
mothers that he is wise to the shapes they can assume and the powers that they wield. 292
describe someone tough enough to disarm the most dangerous opponent.
Americans also picked up the African emphatic use of a negative term to describe
something very positive. If something is bad, it may actually be very good- as in the
The Mandingo (Bambara) phrase a ka nyi ko-jugu literally
-derived word baad, means
bad, as in really good. 293
Songs:
- traditional
- traditional
- Dirty Red (Nelson Wilborn)
136