Clarion Content

Can a word be rejected on a purely aesthetic basis?

As regular readers know, the Clarion is a big fan of wordsmithery. We appreciate the new, well-crafted word. We're not exclusionary or any sort of linguistic purists. We were intellectually braised in the late, late 20th century stew of a post, post-modern era. We accept that language is an imperfect convention and a constant invention. If most all rules in this existence are to a large extent constructs and no rules are firmly affixed, well, linguistic rules are no different, they flux, too.

The two words in question today are recent additions to the Clarion's heard word lexicon, pimpins and shubbas.

Pimpins and Shubbas.

Both of these words fail to turn up at Merriam-Webster.com. The good folks at Merriam-Webster never got wind of these words. Truth be told, the Clarion hadn't either until hearing them uttered by our local, Durhamanian youth recently.

Pimpins is used to refer to one's male comrades, one's homies, one's pals, one's buddies. Used in a sentence, [talking to said buddies about leaving.] "Come on pimpins, it's time to bust out of place."

Shubba is a team of endearment for an extremely cute animal. Used in a sentence, "Aww, look at the little the shubba."

Shubba, for less than good reasons, is somehow significantly more aesthically pleasing to the Clarion's ear. It is in part connotation, shubba's are inevitably darlings, pimpins decidely less so. Beyond that, pimpins is a strange creation, ideally, grammatically, pimps has more basis. However, the fatal flaw of pimps is a decidely negative connotation, even syms don't want to be referred to as pimps. It is widely considered derraogatory. To be pimpin, or better yet big pimpin, on the other hand, is a good thing. To be pimpin is to be stylin' or looking good or rolling in it, winning at the game of life. So when one refers to one's homies as "pimpins" the connotation is then positive, they got it going on, they may even be playas, but they are not pimps. (read: misogynists)

The sound of it still doesn't roll off of the Clarion's tongue, but language is both personal and a consensus. If it works for others who are we to say, "No!" We have no such standing, nobody does except in France.

At first we thought neither of these definitions of these words made the Urban Dictionary cut. For shubba this is correct, the one definition listed is an usage the Clarion is not familiar with, shubba as an exclamation. But a closer look at the UD for pimpins, reveals definition number five, from Big Dirty (Joppa Smoot), who defines pimpins as "another name to call someone." The example of it used in a sentence is, "'Sup, pimpin." This is spot on for the sense the Clarion has heard in Durham.

In sum, despite its less than pleasing sound, pimpins is in the lexicon, alongside shubbas. No language is onomatopoeia. New words cannot, in fact, be rejected on a purely aesthetic basis. One might elect to use them more or less on the basis of aesthetic preference, as in: the Clarion is going to refer to the dudes as "pimpins" on, but not before, the Tuesday after Never. Whereas, while we are unlikely to use shubbas when speaking with homo sapiens, we are quite sure to use it when speaking with other furry creatures.

Labels: Language, Pop Culture