Your days of explaining what words like “bussin” and “grill” mean to white people may be soon be coming to an end. Instead, you can tell them to look it up in the Oxford Dictionary of African American English.
The new dictionary, which is a partnership between the Oxford English Dictionary and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, will be made up entirely of words created by or reinvented by Black people.
https://public.oed.com/oxford-dictionary-of-african-american-english/
1/
While this sounds like a great idea in some ways, it just means even more appropriation can be done by White people because that's literally 99% of what they do 😂 This will just make it easier for them.
Researchers are pulling words from classic works of Black literature, slave narratives, song lyrics and even the latest rants on Black Twitter. They plan to publish the first 1000 definitions in March 2025.
People can send in suggestions for new entries online.
@thewebrecluse a mitigating factor will be that the OED is expen$ive and just about requires a university user ID to access. I'll read about this, maybe they're making it more accessible.
Love the OED but it's a pricey one.