Monday, May 30, 2011

Nutcases on Judge Alex Friday

Where I am because we have something beyond basic cable, we get to see two episodes of "Judge Alex" each day. I know this is not unusual, and that some places see him even more than two half hours. It's just that the basic cable service here provides only one half hour. I believe both our episodes on Friday may have beeen repeats, although I'm not certain. There have been times when I watched cases while under the influence of Klonopin; for all I know, those episodes could have been about pee Wee Herman suing Judge Judy.
(I heard Judge Judy had a recent health scare, by the way; I hope she's fine.)

In one cases, a thirty-eight-year-old woman and a twenty-teo-year-old woman were fighting over a man who, of course, was not present for the case. it would have been nice to judge for myself whether or not I thought he was worth the fight. It culminated in someone's (the older fighter's, I believe)car being "rocked" or "keyed," depending upon whom one chose to believe. The judge didn't seem to care all that much which scenario was true.

The other case I saw was much sadder, and involved a sister who bought furniture from her sister, then threw her out into the street (actually into a homeless shelter, but it was "a really nice one") without paying for the furniture. The judge ordered the non-paying sister to pay up.

I know it's nothing new to our American version of English, but can anyone tell me precisely when "Baby Mama" and "Baby Daddy" became legitimate words in our language? The terms have been around for as long as I can remember. My mom says they weren't in use in her teens, but after that, she had her head so far into books that she couldn't begin to devise any sort of pop culture timeline for language or for anything else. So who knows how and when they made it into the vernacular? Please tell me that this aberration is limited to American English, and that the Queen's English does not recognize such terminology. What about the Aussies? Do they use the terms?

2 comments:

  1. Alexis, I have to report that I have never heard either term until you just used them. What do they mean?

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  2. Matt, the terms refer to the parent of one's offspring when one is not married to said offspring's parent and, as often as not, does not even have a relationship to speak of with said offspring's parent. I think it originated among our ghetto communities and is still most prominently used by lower income people among the African-American population. I first heard it used by litigants on Judge Judy, but it's possible that Jerry springer's clientele was using the terms even earlier. The things you Brits miss out on . . .

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