tricky wrote:
> I'm having a blonde moment. (several years ! )
>
> "my bad"
>
> I've seen this a few times - whatsit mean ?
>
> Rich




my bad/it's my bad - "it's my fault/mistake", an acknowledgement of
blame - this is from US college/university campus 1980's slang, in which
'bad' means mistake or fault (that caused a bad thing), hence 'it's my
bad', or more succinctly, 'my bad'. It's simply a shortening of 'The bad
thing that happened was my fault, sorry'. The word bad in this case has
evolved to mean 'mistake which caused a problem'. It's another example
of the tendency for language to become abbreviated for more efficient
(and stylised) communications. In this case the abbreviation is also a
sort of teenage code, which of course young people everywhere use
because they generally do not wish to adopt lifestyle and behaviour
advocated by parents, teachers, authority, etc., and so develop their
own style and behaviour, including language. For new meanings of words
to evolve there needs to be a user-base of people that understands the
new meanings. Initially the 'my bad' expression was confined to a
discrete grouping, ie., US students, and the meaning wasn't understood
outside of that group. Now it seems the understanding and usage of the
'my bad' expression has grown, along with the students, and entered the
mainstream corporate world, no doubt because US middle management and
boardrooms now have a high presence of people who were teenagers at
college or university 20 years ago. I am also informed (ack K
Korkodilos) that the 'my bad' expression was used in the TV series
'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', and that this seems to have increased its
popular mainstream usage during the 1990's, moreover people using the
expression admitted to watching the show when asked about the possible
connection.