Funny Things Dancers Say...

2/7/2008 2:03:26 PM

I've known many dancers that for one reason or another aren't the most educated women in the world. A lot of them haven't finished high school... of if they had, they obviously didn't pay much attention.

My ATF had to drop out of school when she was 15, but surprisingly, she is very intelligent; you'd never suspect that she wasn't a COLLEGE graduate.

On the other hand, there's a certain dancer that I'm close to. She DID graduate from HS, but she doesn't possess much of a vocabulary. Frequently, she will say something that takes me a moment to figure out what her intended meaning was... it sometimes takes quite an effort to keep a straight face, once it dawns on me what she was trying to say. Her most recent word... "conversate".

She called me, saying that we needed to "conversate" about something. I said, "what?!" She repeated what she'd just said - yeah, I DID hear her correctly. Of course in her mind, "conversate" meant to have a conversation about something. Cracked me up! Still makes me smile when I think about it...

26 comments

Latest

motorhead

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17 years ago

I've heard "conversate" alot lately from my ATF and other dancers. It's urban ebonics, but I find that even many young white girls like to speak ebonics.

My ATF also dropped out of high school at 17 (she got pregnant). On one hand, she is very street smart and very savvy when it comes to her finances (she is 26 now), but on the other hand, her vocabulary is also very limited. I cringe at the way she butchers the King's English. A word she often uses is "tooken" for "taken".

And some of her spelling in text messages is laughable. It goes beyond the ordinary abbreviations some use in TM...like she uses "to" when she means "too".

But do we REALLY care how smart our favorite strippers are? LOL !!!

lotsoffun201

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17 years ago

While some dancers are educated, the vast majority aren't bred for their brains!

DougS

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17 years ago

My ATF, even though she dropped out of school VERY early (yes, she too was pregnant), is very articulate. I have never once thought of her as not being well educated - you'd never know it by talking to her, or observing her. I'm not sure, but I would have to guess that she's got a pretty high IQ, as she is a quick learner, excellent problem solver and wise beyond her years.

On the other side of the coin, I don't think of my C-Fav as being uneducated. She does have a more urban way of talking, and maybe her vocabulary is influenced by ebonics. I certainly don't look down on her because of the way she talks. I actually find it endearing, for the most part.

BobbyI

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17 years ago

Sometimes when a guys likes a woman for whatever reason (e.g. nice boobs, jerks him off onto them, whatever) he will exaagerate some of her more acceptable charateristics, or even imagine she has acceptable characteristics that she does not. I bet stripper "intelligence" is often like that.

quimby

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17 years ago

My favorite expression is when one dancer will say of another dancer : "She's sitting with her ass in a tub of butter".... This sort-of-strange expression means that the person in question has fallen into a sweet deal that she did not really deserve... To my suprise I have also occasionally heard "sitting with your ass in a tub of butter" spoken occasionally in business meetings Pittsburgh Area), again meaning a sweet deal...

chitownlawyer

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17 years ago

When I first saw this topic, I thought of "conversate". A couple of weeks ago I was at my usual club, and a cute waitress with whom I talk shit a lot tried to get me to buy an hour of her time for $350.00 an hour, based on buying a bottle of champagne. This is a new thing at this club, and does not involve any private time-it is, in my opinion, a shrine to PL-dom. In any event, when I asked her why I should spend $350.00 for a bottle of Moet that retails at $40.00, she said, well, we could sit and _converate_."

I had never heard that before.

On the other hand, about a year ago in court, I heard a young lawyer say "allegate" when he meant "allege", so maybe the level of formal education isn't determinative in all cases...

DougS

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17 years ago

Quimby: I'm glad that you explained that phrase... actually, I'm more disappointed to hear what it means. It was making the assumption that "she's sitting with her ass in a tub of butter", meant that she's sitting in the lap of a guy that nutted.. [grin]

FONDL

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17 years ago

In my blog about my ATF, I wrote that one of the things I found fascinating about her were the holes in her personality. One of those holes was her vocabularly, which wasn't very extensive. Interestingly she was very aware of that and has always wanted to improve because she hates to sound as if she's uneducated. She used to ask me often if she had used some word correctly or not, or asked the meaning of some other word. She still does occasionally, even though her vocabularly has improved a great deal. Anyone else run into that with a dancer they know well?

DougS

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17 years ago

FONDL: None that intentionally tried to build their vocabulary, and/or asked if they were using the correct word. My ATF is an avid reader, and I'm sure it's because of that that her vocabulary is extensive enough that you'd never suspect a lack of education. Coincidentally, my C-Fav and I had a conversation along those lines and she told me that she has a dictionary that she keeps handy and is constantly looking up words that she needs a definition for (like when she's helping her kids with homework, etc).

DougS

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17 years ago

Does anyone here feel like they need to "dumb down" the wording they use, when talking to dancers?

I usually don't talk in a stilted manner, so I haven't really need to consciously select the words that I use to make sure that I'm understood. Personally, if I felt like I needed to, it would probably drive me crazy.

SuperDude

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17 years ago

I will "dumb down" to get the dancer to relax if I sense she is feeling uncomfortable with standard, stilted English.

jester214

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17 years ago

I try not to coverse about anything that needs to be dumbed down... Most of the time, conversation fills the 5 minutes before I decide to buy or not to buy a dance from them, or the 60 seconds we are waiting for the next song to begin.

MisterGuy

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17 years ago

You all need to try:
http://www.gizoogle.com/
ta learn how ta speak properly. :)

Don't ever dumb it down ya'll...

DandyDan

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17 years ago

"Conversate" must be a stripper disease, as one of my former favorites would say that all the time. But she was decently smart otherwise. And the lady who probably ranks as my current fave at my favorite club is also a dropout (yes, because she got pregnant), but sounds very smart when she speaks. I told here something I read about the pyramids once, and she actually seemed to have a clue about it. Sometimes, pure intelligence loses out to the heat of the moment.

FONDL

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17 years ago

"Conversate" is exactly the kind of word that you hear from the idiot talking heads (and I realize that's redundant) on TV who are trying to sound like they're more intelligent than they are and end up doing the opposite.

You'll also find that a lot of slang phrases are regional - if you're from somewhere else they really sound stupid to you (like that annoying "wicked good" that you hear in Boston) or you have no idea what they mean.

I don't ever try to dumb down, if she has trouble understanding me I'm not going to be interested in her anyway.

chandler

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17 years ago

The only place I've ever seen or heard "conversate" before was from a poster here a year or two ago. I'm glad to hear it's catching on. I think it's a good word. "Converse" is too stilted. "Conversate" sounds friendlier but more substantial than "chat".

casualguy

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17 years ago

This thread is the first time I ever read or heard about the word "conversate". Never heard of it before. I talk to dancers all the time too and haven't heard that word.

casualguy

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17 years ago

Correction, lol, never heard that Dis Shiznit.

motorhead

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17 years ago

Like FONDL said, perhaps it's a regional thing. Both me and Doug are from the same area (although we favor different clubs) and I hear "conversate" all the time.

I probably know more Spanish than I know hip hop slang, but I am learning. A couple of weeks ago, I learned a new phrase -- "to hook me up" -- it's not what you would think. It's to give a dancer (or anyone else) some money.

MisterGuy

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17 years ago

"Hook me up" can mean a lot of things...it's just basically when someone gets what they want from someone...like "he hooked me up with some weed."

shadowcat

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17 years ago

Yes it is regional. I am from California. When I hear grits at the Waffle House, I want to puke. Now fried Okra is good when done right but when I hear Y'all wanna fuck, I never pass.

funtimes2bhad

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17 years ago

Ok, conversate came on because of a song, from what I can remember. I'll have to search if I can find which one. It fools many because they know conversation, converse, conversed... Even smart women just think it must be a variation, and thus, figure out the meaning without questioning if it is in fact a word.

One of my favorite moments with a stripper was when she told me I was worse off not smoking because while I was breathing secondhand smoke, she was breathing firsthand. I laughed (on the inside) and then explained to her that when she wasn't taking a drag, she was breathing the same air that I was. Wow, when I flipped the switch on that light bulb... She honestly had no idea.

ozymandias

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17 years ago

I first heard "conversate" about 6-7 years ago (I can recall it because I mentioned the word to a woman who was a business partner at that time) and it is indeed an ebonic mutation of "converse".

Sort of like to "axe" a question.

If you are hearing people say "conversate" you aren't talking to educated people ;)

...

I've been partial to the black clubs lately myself, so I've gotten quite an earful of ebonics; it's funny how different speech can be, like "where you stay at?" rather than"where do you live?" or "I ain't seen you in a minute" for "I haven't seen you in a long time." However, the speech seems to infect strippers (and other uneducated types) regardless of race... I was amazed once when I got a voicemail from an Asian stripper I know and, if I hadn't know otherwise, I would have assumed the voice was that of a streetwise black girl ("yo, wassup, jus' wanna give ya a holla, you know what I'm sayin? gimme a call back, peace...")

O.

MisterGuy

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17 years ago

I think "a minute" is a little less time than "a long time" BTW...word... ;)

chandler

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17 years ago

"You fuck like my dad."

She meant it to be funny. I think.

MisterGuy

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17 years ago

Ut oh...you'll know for sure if she starts calling you daddy during it...