The dozens

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The dozens is an oral tradition in which two people go toe-to-toe in a contest of often bad-natured, often ribald "trash-talk". They take turns insulting; "burning", "capping", "cracking", "heating", "ranking", "sparking", "sunning", "janking", "snapping", "checking", "riding", "frying", "cooking", "jonein'", "cutting one up", "projectoring" or even "pwning/owning" (on online games)^{[citation needed]} — on one another, their adversary's mother, or other family member until one of them has no comeback. In addition to any of the terms listed above, playing the dozens can also be referred to as a "cut-low fight," or simply an "insult fight." Similar traditions exist in other Western cultures.

Each putdown, or snap, ups the ante. Defeat can be humiliating, but a skilled contender, win or lose, may gain respect. The dozens is part of the African American oral tradition of wordplay and verbal sparring, elements evident in the development of hip-hop, especially the practice of freestyle battling. Being defeated by an opponent is often referred to as being served. Being served may cause a loss of street cred or credibility.

Contents 1 History and practice 2 The dozens in literature and the performing arts 3 The dozens in other cultures 4 References 5 See also

[edit] History and practice

The dozens can be a harmless game of casual, good-natured jibes, an exchange of malicious insults, taunts or, if tempers flare, a prelude to physical violence. While the competition usually seems light-hearted, smiles sometimes mask real tensions. In its purest form, the dozens is part of a custom of verbal sparring, of "woofin'" and "signifyin'" ostensibly intended to defuse conflict nonviolently, descended from oral traditions of indigenous West African cultures.^{[citation needed]} The contest is generally judged informally by any onlookers or bystanders who may be watching. The dozens is a battle for the respect of onlookers and is rarely seen without spectators. The onlookers express approval or disapproval with laughter, jeers, or slang filled catcalls such as, "Ohhhhh! Burn!."

The term the dozens is believed to refer to the devaluing on the auction block of slaves who were past their prime, deformed, aged, or no longer capable of hard labor after years of back-breaking toil. These slaves often were sold by the dozen. In "Still Laughing to Keep from Crying: Black Humor," African American author and professor Mona Lisa Saloy writes:

The dozens has its origins in the slave trade of New Orleans where deformed slaves—generally slaves punished with dismemberment for disobedience—were grouped in lots of a 'cheap dozen' for sale to slave owners. For a Black to be sold as part of the 'dozens' was the lowest blow possible.^[1]

"Yo' momma" is a common, widely recognized retort in slang. It is a cryptic and sometimes comical allusion to the dozens. A more extended version is the Yo Momma joke, the most common way of playing the dozens, using a mix of exaggeration or even pop culture references to talk about the health, size, age, skin color, or sexual promiscuity of the opponent's mother (fathers and sisters are also popular targets, as well as the person they are insulting):

Yo momma so fat, she jumped in the air and got stuck!

Yo momma so dumb, she thought a quarterback was a refund!

Yo momma so old, when God said: "Let there be light," she threw the switch!

Yo momma's teeth is so yellow, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!

Yo momma so stupid, she got hit by a parked car!

Yo momma so stupid, she died of hunger in a supermarket!

Yo mamma so stupid, she put a quarter in a parking meter and said "Where's my gumball?"

Yo momma so stupid, she stole a free sample.

Children have been known to express contempt or defiance by reciting a short poem that refers to the dozens, but in which the insults are mostly implied:

Yo' momma, Yo' daddy, Yo' sista, too. Go tell them bitches, go back to the zoo.

Yo' momma, Yo' daddy, Yo' bald-head granny, Yo Grandma's Grandma's Cousin's Uncle Dog

Yo' momma, Yo' daddy, Yo' greasy-greasy granny, with the hole in her panty, goin' Beep-Beep-Beep down Sesame Street

Yo' momma, Yo' daddy, Yo' bald-head granny, she ninty one, she ninty two, she gettin down with Pikachu

She ninety-nine. She think she fine. She had a date with Frankenstein

Your mom gave birth to a dog named Jimmy, than Jimmy had your mom!

[edit] The dozens in literature and the performing arts

Kokomo Arnold, one of the first popular American blues musicians of the 1930s, released a song Twelves (Dirty Dozens) that includes lyrics such as:

I like yo' momma—sister, too

I did like your poppa—but your poppa wouldn't do

I met your poppa on the corner the other day

I soon found out he as funny that way.

Yo Momma, Yo Daddy, yo greasy greasy grandnanny (As documented in the song 'Ooh, Stick You!' by Daphne and Celeste)

In Zora Neale Hurston's, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), there is reference to "playin' de dozens" in front of Joe's store.

Comedian George Carlin talks about playing the dozens on his Grammy-winning 1972 album Occupation: Foole.

You wanna play the dozens

well the dozens is a game

but the way I'm f***ing your mother

is a godd*** shame.

In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, published in 1952, the narrator/protagonist is treated in a factory hospital following an explosion. On page 241 of the paperback edition: "I looked at him, feeling a quick dislike and thinking, half in amusement, I don't play the dozens." Ellison's correspondence with his friend, writer and fellow Tuskegee student, Albert Murray, is titled Trading Twelves, which refers to competition among jazz musicians, who trade twelve bar solos, raising the ante each time.

On the sitcom Benson (episode unknown) Benson and Clayton compete in a formal 'Dozens' competition.

Alternative hip-hop group The Pharcyde released a song on their debut album Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde entitled "Ya' Mama", the lyrics of which consist entirely of snaps. A remix of this song is used as the theme of MTV's trash-talk show Yo Momma (see below for more information about the show). The Australian hip-hop group Butterfingers have a song called "Yo Momma" that includes the chorus "Yo Momma's on the top of my things-to-do list." In addition, underground hip-hop artist Count Bass D begins his album Pre-Life Crisis with a song about snaps called "The Dozens."

The book Snaps (1994), written by James Percely, is a compendium of over 450 jokes. Its popularity gave rise to sequels Double Snaps (1995), Triple Snaps (1996), and Snaps 4 (1998). The books use the epithet "your mother", as opposed to the more common "yo' momma". The book series spawned a television series titled Snaps which ran briefly on HBO. The movies White Men Can't Jump, Remember the Titans, 8 Mile, and House Party include exchanges of snaps.

In a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1990s entitled "I'm Chillin'", which was presented as an inner-city public-access talk show, the host (played by then-castmember Chris Rock) would regularly present a segment entitled "Mother Joke of the Day". Rock's character would present a "mother joke" submitted by a fictitious viewer, after which Don Pardo would describe a fictitious prize to be awarded to the viewer in question, including a beverage known as "F'd Up Malt Liquor".

The Keenan Ivory Wayans TV show In Living Color regularly featured a game show segment titled The Dirty Dozens and parodies of popular game shows, such as Wheel of Dozens and Family Dozens. Their brothers, Shawn and Marlon, have also been involved in these, so much so that in 2004, they released a mobile phone game based on The Dozens, as well as a card game.

The book A Portrait of Yo Mama As a Young Man (2005), written by Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts, is a postmodern take on the dozens which redefines the form through the use of reflexivity, absurdism, and anti-humor. In addition to jokes, the book contains charts, poetry, a résumé, and various other short humor pieces. The title is derived from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The title of the Mexican film Y tu mamá también (literally, "And your mother, too") is taken from a scene in the movie where in the two young male protagonists do their equivalent of the dozens.

In 2006, MTV premiered a game show titled Yo Momma executive produced and hosted by Wilmer Valderrama. Contestants face off in playing the dozens. The person judged to be the funniest wins a cash prize. The four winners from that week then face off in a final round, where the weekly winner gets another cash prize and additional prizes as well.

In the TV series, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Grim's scythe turns Billy and Mandy's school principal, Principal Goodvibes, into a semi-rapper; he insults Grim's momma once, and is seen having a dozens competition with Erwin that Goodvibes loses badly. Then the grandmother steps in and plays the dozens with the principal, who loses again.

Fictional artist MC Hawking (a gangsta-rapping parody of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking) has a song called "The Dozens" on his CD A Brief History of Rhyme: MC Hawking's Greatest Hits, where he raps "yo momma" jokes like "Yo momma's such a slut, the other night I had to park my dick on her ass and wait an hour to get in."

Award-winning author and University of California, Los Angeles professor Mike Rose refers to "running the dozens" in his oft-anthologized essay, "I Just Wanna Be Average". ("Tyrrell was the coolest kid I knew. He ran the dozens like a metric halfback...")

In jazz, at least three pieces have dozens-related titles: "Yo' Mama's Mambo" which pianist/composer Horace Silver plays; "How's Your Mama" which alto saxophonist/composer Phil Woods plays as his theme song; and "Yo Mama", a blues which trumpeter Jack Sheldon usually sandwiches between his own versions of the dozens.

In the 2001 film Heist, written and directed by David Mamet, Gene Hackman's character Joe Moore assaults an adversary and subsequently asks him, "You want to play the dozens? Huh? Here we go. There was an error at the hospital, you died at birth, your turn."

[edit] The dozens in other cultures

Historically, similar verbal competitions were practiced in other cultures. Ancient Germanic cultures, including the Norse and Anglo-Saxons, practiced a ritual exchange of insults known as flyting, which is similar in function to the dozens. In sixteenth-century Scotland, the term flyting was used to describe an exchange of abusive poems by poets. Arab poets exchanged creative insults in naqa'id, a practice continued in the zajal verbal jousting of present-day Lebanon. American cowboys in the late nineteenth century participated in cussing contests, the winners of which were sometimes rewarded with new saddles.

In Shakespeare's England insult competitions were common, with professional experts who were known as 'roarers'. Ben Jonson (a contemporary of Shakespeare) wrote a comedy, 'The Roarer', about a foppish young man who hires a roarer to teach him the art so that he can best his wife-to-be in arguments. Some aspects of insults are discussed in the essay 'Lars Porsena, or the Future of Swearing in the English Language' by the English poet Robert Graves.

Outside of insult contests, the phrase "your mom" is also used as a serious insult or general retort.

[edit] References

1. ^ Mona Lisa Saloy (2001). Still Laughing to Keep from Crying: Black Humor. Louisiana Folklife Festival booklet. Retrieved on November 15, 2005.

[edit] See also

• Avoidance speech (mother-in-law languages)
• Call and response
• Dissing
• Extempo
• Folklore
• Insult swordfighting
• Roast (comedy)
• Taunt
• Wolf ticket
• Yo Momma
• Your mum