Bae
bae: sostantivo numerabile
bae: aggettivo
He’s my bae.
Gonna spend the day with my bae.
What’s up, bae?
Nella rosa delle finaliste al titolo di ‘parola dell’anno’ 2014 dell’Oxford University Press compariva bae (la vincitrice è stata vape), che era anche candidata al titolo corrispondente dell’American Dialect Society, annunciato la settimana scorsa (la vittoria è andata all’hashtag #blacklives matter).
Bae è stata al centro di vivaci polemiche, non ultimo perché vista come classico esempio di appropriazione culturale, cioè della pratica che vede la cultura bianca prendere in prestito elementi della cultura nera – un’espressione, una moda, una danza –sfruttandoli fino alla nausea, banalizzandoli, per poi decretarne la morte.
Chissà se bae sarà presto dichiarata ‘fuori moda’: di certo è stata usatissima nei social network per designare ‘un tipo figo, una cosa desiderabile’ in soli tre caratteri (cosa particolarmente utile su Twitter). Sempre sui social network bae sembra essersi trasformata da appellativo (cioè da sostantivo) ad aggettivo:
pizza is bae
Everything seems to be “bae” now like your phone charger or your laundry scented candle.
E a volte si comporta anche come verbo:
Jennifer Anniston is probably the baest bae of all the baes ever to bae in the history of baedom.
Di approprazione culturale si parla anche nel caso di un altro termine messo al voto dall’ADS: columbusing, che descrive il fenomeno stesso. Columbusing, basato sul nome di Cristoforo Colombo, fa riferimento ironico alla ‘scoperta’ da parte dei bianchi di qualcosa già noto a una minoranza culturale.
Origini del termine
Non è facile stabilire le origini di bae, ma sembra che si tratti dell’abbreviazione dell’appellativo affettuoso babe o baby, largamente usata dagli afro-americani prima di diffondersi ad altre culture. Secondo alcuni si tratta invece dell’acronimo di Before Anyone Else, ma ciò pare poco probabile anche perché tale acronimo emerge molto dopo l’entrata in uso di bae.
bae: countable noun
bae: adj
He’s my bae.
Gonna spend the day with my bae.
What’s up, bae?
One of the contenders for Oxford University Press’s Word of the Year 2014 (it was beaten to the title by vape), bae was also a candidate for the American Dialect Society’s corresponding award, announced last week. In the latter case bae was roundly beaten by the hashtag #blacklives matter.
Bae has recently been the topic of vigorous discussion, not least because it has been seen as a prime example of cultural appropriation, and in particular of the way in which white culture borrows something – a word, a fashion, a dance trend – from black culture, does it to death and then declares it ‘over’.
While bae may or may not be ‘over’, it has certainly proved popular in social media where it has become shorthand (especially useful on Twitter because of the restricted number of characters) for anyone or anything regarded as desirable or appealing. It is on social media too that bae seems to have evolved from a term of endearment (ie a noun) into something that looks a lot like an adjective:
pizza is bae
Everything seems to be “bae” now like your phone charger or your laundry scented candle.
In fact it has even been observed behaving like a verb:
Jennifer Anniston is probably the baest bae of all the baes ever to bae in the history of baedom.
Cultural appropriation featured in the ADS’s voting not only in the form of a culturally appropriated term, bae, but also in the word columbusing, which describes the phenomenon itself. Columbusing is a clever coinage, based of course on the name of the famous explorer, that refers to white people claiming to discover things that are already known by members of minority cultures.
Origin
Although the origin of bae is contentious, it seems likely that it is an affectionate shortening of babe or baby, widely used among black Americans before it entered the global mainstream. Suggestions that it originates from the phrase Before Anyone Else are clearly unfounded, not least because the acronym postdates use of the word by a considerable period of time.
