More about tea

Tea, as dished about in jarrett hill and Tre’vell Anderson’s new book, Historically Black Phrases, out now from Ten Speed Press from Penguin Random House:

PRONUNCIATION

Phonetic.

TRANSLATION

“Information.”

USAGE

A foundational piece of Black queer language that originated in Black drag culture. Describes potentially unknown or little-known information; it can be obvious or take some discerning.

EXAMPLE

Ryanne arrived to the after-party late. “What’s tea, sis?” she said to her bestie Mika, sensing she’s just missed something. “Apparently Simone’s boyfriend and side piece are both on their way,” Mika whispered.

ORIGIN OF TEA

• Tea may have come from the celebrated drag performer The Lady Chablis, who is quoted in the 1994 bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: “Yeah, my T. My thing, my business, what’s goin’ on in my life.” T, here, is short for truth.
• The slang tea may riff on The Lady Chablis’s T as well as on tea parties, at which well-to-do Southern women are popularly imagined to gossip.
• Tea spread thanks in part to RuPaul’s Drag Race starting in 2009. The reality show frequently uses (spilling the) tea for “gossip.”

More about eggcorn

• While eggcorn is attested as early as the early 19th century, its present sense dates from 2003.
• Eggcorn is a coinage by linguistics professor Geoffrey K. Pullum based on the word acorn, which could be mistaken to be a compound of egg and corn because of acorns’ size and shape.
• Eggcorns tend to reflect common mistakes at the individual level—no matter how widespread these mistakes may be—that do not change the spelling of the mistaken word or phrase.
• Eggcorns are based on logical misunderstandings, so not every misspelling qualifies as an eggcorn.

EXAMPLES OF EGGCORN

• After watching the movie, she couldn’t help but laugh at the eggcorns he made when trying to quote famous lines.
• As a linguistics enthusiast, he found joy in discovering eggcorns that had permeated everyday language, such as “old wise tale” instead of “old wives’ tale.”

More about disparate

• Disparate entered English around 1580-90.
• Disparate comes from the Latin word disparātus, meaning “separated.”
• The dis- element means “not,” while par- comes from the Latin verb parāre, “to prepare, to get ready,” which in this case may be influenced in meaning by the Latin word par, “equal.”

SYNONYMS OF DISPARATE

• separate
• divergent
• incommensurable

EXAMPLES OF DISPARATE

• The team members had disparate opinions on how to approach the problem, resulting in a lengthy and impassioned debate.
• The artist’s latest exhibition showcased a collection of disparate works of art, each representing a unique perspective on the human experience.