Signifyin'

Common card · No. 458729

Signifyin' (sometimes written "signifyin(g)") is a practice in African-American culture and African-American Vernacular English involving a verbal strategy of indirection that exploits the gap between the denotative and figurative meanings of words. A simple example would be insulting someone to show them affection. Other names for signifyin' include: "Dropping lugs, joaning, sounding, capping, snapping, dissing, busting, bagging, janking, ranking, toasting, woofing, roasting, putting on, or cracking." Signifyin' directs attention to the connotative, context-bound significance of words, which is accessible only to those who share the cultural values of a given speech community. The expression comes from stories about the signifying monkey, a trickster figure said to have originated during slavery in the United States. Signifyin’ can also be a critical mode, through which African diaspora figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Walter J. Hood have expressed their work. The American literary...

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