I decided to accept on faith the authenticity of the hip-hop slang that appeared in the Washington Post last week. I believe that Miami rappers describe something wonderful as "off the hizzies" and that "jainky" means not quite right in Atlanta. I'm untroubled by the fact that one of the Post's sources goes by the name of Yukmouth.
There was a time when I would have been more skeptical. In 1993, shortly after the New York Times published a glossary of grunge slang from Seattle, a journal called the Baffler claimed that a prankster had hoodwinked the Times with the notion...
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