Today's Wall Street Journal has quite a few comments about words!

Russell Simmons, a famous hip-hop music promoter whose stature in recent years has swelled to cultural wise man, announced to the hip-hop "community" that it was time to retire the "h", "b" and "n" words. For the eight or nine Journal readers who don't listen to the rhymes of hip-hop, "b" rhymes with witch, and "n" rhymes with bigger.

And what does the 'h' word rhyme with?

Donkey?

Uh, it rhymes with "oh." In fact, if you're dyslexic...

Do we really need to use euphemistic rhymes here?

Bitch, Ho (short for whore), and Nigger

The first not referring to to female dogs, the second not really referring to working girls, and the third not always referring to African Americans.

These three words are over-used in rap music (and leaking out into regular speech of people).

Is "ho" that common in ordinary American speech that the author had to explain (albeit in a roundabout way) the "b" word and the "n" word, but not the "h" word?

Over here it's not used apart from the in lyrics of American rap songs. Its antecedent, "whore" is also hardly used, either in its actual meaning or as a term for women in general.

I wonder if that goes for British teens as well-- do you get exposed to their speech, Arnie? My idea of British teen slang is hopelessly romanticicized with memories of Michael Caine in 'Alfie', back when girls were affectionately called 'birds'...

I lived in Brooklyn near a public h.s. before moving to Jersey 15 yrs ago. I remember being surprised to note that kids of every color/ culture (even Asian!) had adopted a 'common language'. It could perhaps best be described as a Brooklynese[the old Irish/Italian/Yiddish blend)-PuertoRican accent, slurred and peppered Southern-black-style with locutions such as "I be goin'." This made great sense, as I also observed that there had been much assimilation and mixed marriage since my high-school days (when these groups were utterly segregated, West-Side-Story style)-- there were kids of every shade, and you could see a new standard of beauty reflecting this in TV models of mixed parentage. All in all, I found the street lingo a happy development from the silent rage that abounded in the urban ghettoes of the '60's. I suppose we now have to put up with silly white men my age trying to be 'cool' by saying 'ho' etc., as an adverse side effect.

I can't say that I'm exposed daily to British teens (horrors! ) but I am fairly well informed about their habits. Your "ho" is a "sket" over here.

Like the kids in Brooklyn that you mention, many kids here use an interesting argot with many loan words from some slightly unexpected (to me, at any rate) sources. The immigrants from the West Indies have probably the strongest influence, but words from Indian languages are also commonly borrowed.

Experts have dubbed it MLE (multi-cultural London English). There's a pretty good article on the site of The Independent newspaper.

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Is "ho" that common in ordinary American speech

No. I hadn't even heard the word before the recent flap.

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Is "ho" that common in ordinary American speech

If you're under 30, I don't see how could possibly not know what this word means. It is frequently used in television shows and rap songs, including popular ones.

Of course, you have to listen to those rap songs and watch those TV shows. I don't listen to rap and I just haven't heard it on any of the TV shows that I watch. More importantly, I suppose...I am over 30. I am certain my 3 kids have heard the word, though I will ask.

I read the word "ho" on a site somewhere and asked what it was. Then I learnt that it means "whore" - but apparently it is a pejorative term that denigrates a woman or women. It does not actually mean that the person subject to mention actually works as a prostitute.

An good example of the bastardisation of our language.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard English,

Ho, or as I like to jocularly write it 'ho'e is not really a different word from whore. It is merely an eye dialect for whore (in AAVE). As to whether or not the person referred to is a prostitute, The application of such a pejorative word to some woman, who is not literally a whore, is for the purposes of demeaning her. It's just metaphor. Like calling somebody a sly old fox or a sheep. As Seanahan says it is ubiquitously used in the popular media.

The w in whore is not at all etymological (and the same goes for the one in whale). Whereas the w in who and while are. The Old English is hóre. Many dialects of English, both in the UK and in the States, are non-rhotic, so I don't see what the problem is.

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It's just metaphor. Like calling somebody a sly old fox or a sheep.

In the UK, if not in the USA, it would be considered far more insulting to call a lady a whore - or it would in the circles where I move.

In the UK, if not in the USA, it would be considered far more insulting to call a lady a whore - or it would in the circles where I move.

Sigh, it probably would be in my circles, too, although I don't know because I haven't tried. The point I was making is that it is not a literal use of the word. Instead of sly old fox imagine silly little bugger. Probably closer to the feel for 'ho'e.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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Is "ho" that common in ordinary American speech

No. I hadn't even heard the word before the recent flap.

Whaaaaat!?!? You never heard of Don Ho, or Ho Chi Minh? Or in the ethnic fairy tale, Snow Dwarf and The Seven Whites, "Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, it's off to work we go?"

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Instead of sly old fox imagine silly little bugger.

Even that would not be so offensive. The word "bugger" has so long been parted from its true meaning that it is not all that offensive these days. I did get punished at school, some 50 years ago, for using the term - but I doubt that it would cause much angst these days.

But whore is still pretty offensive. I would imagine that far more women would be upset at being called whores than would men at being called buggers.

My point was that first of all the use in some parts of the States of ho is metaphorical and not literal, no matter how offensive, and secondly, that in some US milieux calling a woman a ho is no more offensive than somebody in the UK calling you a silly little bugger. As with so much in language, it's all about the context and the relationships between the speakers and hearers.

Very well defined, I believe, zmj. And of course 'the flap' as Kalleh puts it, is the revelation to the over-30's that women under 30 have been putting up with being called 'ho' on a routine basis, by... MEN!

Getting back to Don Imus, the inadvertent catalyst, and his now-infamous phrase... I can see how 'nappy-headed' might be a term which one black might call another (in a very familiar, all-in-the-family sort-of way). That business of adopting a hurtful term and desensitizing it. However, a black man calling black female acquaintances 'ho's' is different, and the corollary use of the word by women is revealing. Makes it pretty clear to anyone who didn't get it before that 'Women's Lib' was a phenomenon of the white community.

Far from bemoaning the spread of crude street lingo via rap lyrics, I welcome the intercultural/ intergenerational dialog that this phenomenon has provoked in the US.

A phenomenon of white women? Uhhh, tell that to Condoleeza Rice.

All of this boils down to overt vs. covert classism/sexism/racism. F'rinstance, I'm a fairly glib person, but a blue-collar wage slave. When in some groups of white-collar folks I'm accepted UNTIL I reveal my occupation. Then I get the white equivalent of "We just loves our colored people/You're a credit to your race." It ain't just India that separates people into "Castes and outcasts," as one schoolboy said long ago.

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Is "ho" that common in ordinary American speech that the author had to explain (albeit in a roundabout way) the "b" word and the "n" word, but not the "h" word? Confused

I think in this case the author was afraid to elaborate on the "h" for fear of suffering a similar fate to Don Imus.

I don't believe the use of "ho" is all that common in general communication in the workplace or the classroom--but in social contexts among the young, yes. One of the TV shows I enjoy watching is Scrubs, in which racial issues are often fodder for great humorous riffs, and on that show I have heard male and female, black and white characters refer, in passing, to other characters' girlfriends as "hos." It's used almost in the same sense that we would hear "bimbo" used a few years back. Bimbo is not a kind way of referring to a woman either and is also demeaning, yet it is not quite as insulting. To me, it means more "loose woman" than out-and-out prostitute. But I think "ho" has now evolved to mean "over-sexed woman I don't like or am jealous of or think is not good enough for you" in such contexts.

Wordmatic

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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Is "ho" that common in ordinary American speech

No. I hadn't even heard the word before the recent flap.

I suspect you have and just don't remember it. Virge mentioned it on August 20, 2004 and Caterwauller on January 19, 2005 . I first time I remember seeing the word was in a post by wildflowerchild on the APS forum about 2001 or 2002. The OED Online records it from 1964:

1. derogatory. A sexually promiscuous woman; (also, sometimes with weakened force) a woman

1964 R. D. ABRAHAMS Deep down in Jungle Gloss. 266 Main who', best girlfriend. 1988 R. WALTERS Treat her like Prostitute (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 298 Now your girl she don't like to have sex a lot And today she's ready and she's hot hot hot... Next thing you know the ho starts to ill She says, ‘I love you, Harold’ and your name is Will. 1992 Esquire July 14/2 What is surprising is Esquire's stereotypical portrayal of black women as oversexed ‘hos’—a depiction that was used to justify the raping of black women throughout slavery. 1995 Wire Jan. 24/2 In the next verse or the one after, there was a lot of stuff about beating the shit out of your 'ho if she hasn't got a meal waiting for you when you get home. 2000 Elle Sept. 283, I tend to design for ghetto fabulous ‘ho's’, pop divas and Portobello babes.

2. A prostitute.

1965 W. KING in Liberator Aug. 22/2 Let me cop a Benny Franklin until my whoe brings me some dough. 1967 B. DYLAN Tiny Montgomery (song) in Basement Tapes (1975) (sheet music), Three-legged man And a hot-lipped hoe Tell 'em all Montgomery says hello. 1974 Black World Aug. 55 ‘Damn!’ he thought, ‘times are so tight even the ho's are working double shifts.’ 1988 L. PARKER Jimmy (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 44 Here is a message to the super hos Just keep in mind When Jimmy grows It grows and grows and grows. 1994 Straight No Chaser Summer 17/1 It's fat like a $20 ho sittin' on yo face. 2000 N.Y. Times Mag. 6 Aug. 40/3 He be pimpin' hos and everything.

Tinman

I've also heard the word "ho" used to refer to anyone who has "sold out" or someone who has "given away favors, usually but not always sexual, for some sort of reward that undervalued the favors given". Gender, in this usage, doesn't seem to matter. I can't think of a specific usage to quote, but, for instance, I might call my husband a "tv ho" if he keeps letting our son run around like a banshee as long as he (my husband) can still watch his favorite TV shows.

Does that make sense?

Again, this is not a word I would actually use, except with very close friends, and even then in ribald jesting so that it is obvious I don't consider that friend to be any kind of ho.

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so I don't see what the problem is.

There isn't a problem, at least on Wordcraft. We, anyway, are just having a great discussion about the word. I very much appreciate the various perspectives people have. The fact is, whether I should have or not, I didn't know the the word until the flap about Imus. While Tinman indicates it was used on this very site in 2004, I just didn't remember it. I should have, but didn't. Sometimes I don't remember the definitions of the words of the day, either.

Too much to learn; too little time.

Now that we've had this discussion, I'm noticing the word "ho" in more places. Last night on "Desperate Housewives," one character said to another, "Bros before hos," meaning that men are more important than women. Very sexist but not sexual. It was a white suburbanite imitating black street talk from the 'hood.

WM

I listen to a lot of rap music, and I find it uses very inventive and poetic language. One of my favourite songs is Blackstar's Respiration, which I've copied part of in the lyrics thread.

Reviving a thread...
We talked about the ho flap in May. Well, a company that hires Santas to work in shopping malls has advised its Santas not to use the word "ho" because it's demeaning to women. While the company (Westaff) is in Australia, they provide shopping mall Santas all over the world. It's an interesting linguistic world we live in.

[BTW, I haven't seen Goofy around lately. I miss him!]

Oh, balderhockey! Santas can say, "ho, ho, ho" without being pimps!

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While the company (Westaff) is in Australia, they provide shopping mall Santas all over the world.

What you mean they're not at the North Pole? Another illusion shattered.

Santa, a.k.a. my dad, just chuckles and doesn't need to say HO HO HO because he's The Real Santa.

Also, being an OSU Buckeye, whenever he sees "OH" or "HO", he'll say back "IO" . . a common cheer in this state.