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Define "badass"?

#83
48F5CBAD-449D-41A8-B335-848C588527BE.jpeg
 
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#86
two fingers said:
You kidn me? I have 7 and 9 year old girls. The English language has gone NUTS!

See something cute? It's "soops adorbz". That is to say it's "super adorable".

See something badass? It's either "sick" or "soops kray", which is to say "super crazy". The extreme version is "soops kray kray".

Badass ain't nuthin'. I could go on all day.


Words morph all the time. It's what we do.
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I think it all started with the word COMY.

God... I hate that word. So ----in ----- ( will refrain from sounding like a.... (will refrain once again from sounding like a you know what)).
 
#88
mikeoso said:
I see a lot of use of the word "badass" to describe people and objects. It bemuses me. Where I came from, badass meant people who you seriously did not mess with, because they were capable of and inclined toward exaggerated acts of physical violence. When I hung out in South Chicago and when I served in the Marines in the '60s, the badasses were people who might kill you if you irritated them. "Badass" meant scary. The Blackstone Rangers were badass. NVA sapper teams were badass.

The badass didnt come from costume, and you couldnt talk your way into being thought a badass.

Now I see the word applied to bass headstocks, power stances, makeup, and paint jobs. A strap can be badass. People discuss whether a 35" 4 string bass is more badass than a 34" 5 string. Can someone please explain this linguistic shift? Does badass just mean trendy now...is "badass" the new "cool"? or do people now actually think that a spiky bass or strap with chrome studs really makes you physically intimidating?
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It was good at Iwo Jima, and it's good enough for me...
Eyut!
 
#91
mikeoso said:
I see a lot of use of the word "badass" to describe people and objects. It bemuses me. Where I came from, badass meant people who you seriously did not mess with, because they were capable of and inclined toward exaggerated acts of physical violence. When I hung out in South Chicago and when I served in the Marines in the '60s, the badasses were people who might kill you if you irritated them. "Badass" meant scary. The Blackstone Rangers were badass. NVA sapper teams were badass.

The badass didnt come from costume, and you couldnt talk your way into being thought a badass.

Now I see the word applied to bass headstocks, power stances, makeup, and paint jobs. A strap can be badass. People discuss whether a 35" 4 string bass is more badass than a 34" 5 string. Can someone please explain this linguistic shift? Does badass just mean trendy now...is "badass" the new "cool"? or do people now actually think that a spiky bass or strap with chrome studs really makes you physically intimidating?
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And "gay" apparel used to mean festive clothing. Time marches on, do you really not get that the meaning of some words changes over time?
 
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#93
Badass is a term that emerges from pride in the absence of organization and rules. In other words it comes out of the gang culture. Most often a male in a group of badasses. Bad indicates deviance from wider social values, and ass connotes a combination of toughess and meaness. The point of being a badass is to be aggressive, to threaten conflict, and to be the winner in advance. Guns, power etc.

A true badass is basically a someone you would normally laugh at, but you're afraid to. You sort of wait until they are gone and then burst out laughing.

When I use the term it's just transformed into a compliment. It's a kind of self indulgent sense of being superior, the best, super cool.
 
#97
mikeoso said:
I see a lot of use of the word "badass" to describe people and objects. It bemuses me. Where I came from, badass meant people who you seriously did not mess with, because they were capable of and inclined toward exaggerated acts of physical violence. When I hung out in South Chicago and when I served in the Marines in the '60s, the badasses were people who might kill you if you irritated them. "Badass" meant scary. The Blackstone Rangers were badass. NVA sapper teams were badass.

The badass didnt come from costume, and you couldnt talk your way into being thought a badass.

Now I see the word applied to bass headstocks, power stances, makeup, and paint jobs. A strap can be badass. People discuss whether a 35" 4 string bass is more badass than a 34" 5 string. Can someone please explain this linguistic shift? Does badass just mean trendy now...is "badass" the new "cool"? or do people now actually think that a spiky bass or strap with chrome studs really makes you physically intimidating?
Click to expand...
If language never evolved we’d still be grunting at each other.
 
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#100
Back in the 70's I taught at a music store in our Midwestern town. Anderson was, at the time, the self-appointed Church Of God Capital Of The World. When the Badass Bridge started becoming popular, the employees were instructed to call it the ba-DASS' bridge, so as not to offend any COG officials or members. Seriously...
 
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