Black People : Just wait a cotton picking minute!!

[Zulile]

We've got the 'New York Minute'.. which means real darn fast.. but where does the cotton picking minute come from and what does it actually mean? I only know the term being expressed in frustration/anger.. I'd love to hear some ideas..

:?:

 

[We]

When I was younger, I too had wondered about the origins of this idiom. (The same for "cotton-picking hands" as in, "Get your cotton-picking hands off me!")

I was able to infer from the context what it really meant, a long moment.

I'd never research it's origin. (as in who coined the term).

I think some use it as a euphemism; substituting it for another curse word. As in, "Just wait a ****** minute."


peace,

 

[truetothecause]

here's what i found and what i beleive bout it...

where does the cotton picking minute come from and what does it actually mean?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061221112745AAW0qly


http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2004/11/65181
"The field hands who used to gather in jook joints on weekend nights were replaced by cotton picking machines in 1944, and the newly unemployed sharecroppers and blues players headed north to look for work."
Laszlo Pataki

Interested in a scholarly discourse on the topic:?:
Go here:
www.econ.yale.edu/seminars/echist/eh04-05/olmstead042005.pdf

Bottom line as I've overstood it.
Many Slaves picked cotton from sun up to sun down. They were worked hard and had to work FAST to bring in the total crop by a certain time....trading time I suppose. I can envision the set up of the times then.
Seasonal changes, scheduled marketing and trading post at great distances from the farming lands and miles upon miles of cotton field which required picking when the crop was ripe.
"Cotton-picking hands" were hands which moved swiftly.
"Cotton-picking minds" where the minds of a slave. To even THINK about doing anything other then work for massa or to plot AGAINST massa, meant one was OUT of their "cotton-picking mind". The mind of a slave. The mind that dared to think they were or could be anything other than a slave....here on the shores of merikkka. I bet if I put my hands just now of that book, "Bullwhip Days:" there are numerous references to the "cotton-picking hands".

Once the slaves were "freed' and moved up North, maybe that's when the "New York minute" came into being.

I used to have a link to a sight which gave more detailed information about word/phrase origins. Can't find it right now...yet, the links I did find I posted.

Happy Learning!

M.E.

 

[Omowale Jabali]

We've got the 'New York Minute'.. which means real darn fast.. but where does the cotton picking minute come from and what does it actually mean? I only know the term being expressed in frustration/anger.. I'd love to hear some ideas..

:?:

Simply put, "Hard Times"

Like the Bob Marley song, 400 Years.

 

[Omowale Jabali]

Side bar

Simply put, "Hard Times"

Like the Bob Marley song, 400 Years.

Since you bring up Ebonic terminology related to cotton-pickin' and I reference a musician

fity cen as in the rapper 50 Cent is a reference to 'generous pay for a hard day of cotton-picking'.

Which makes him what?