Re: mad props

Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2003 11:34:01 -0700
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Size: 2,796 bytes

Richard Maurer wrote:
>
> "Mad props" is an intensified form of "props",
> which means something like kudos or acknowledgment.
>
> "Yes, mad props to Jerold, but it should probably be noted
> that this assumes a US date format."
>
> I first came across it a couple months ago while accidentally
> reading a hip-hop music magazine. The phrase or bare word
> was used in half of the Letters to the Editor.
> The strange thing -- props was the only unfamiliar word --
> I thought there would be more (even after the editing).
>
> When it appeared unmarked on a projection page in a business
> presentation (again, the only unfamiliar word),
> I was prompted to write this since I don't see anything in aue,
> except an oblique reference by Ben Zimmer.
The reference was, I think, to a list of teen slang (mostly derived from
hiphop) that appeared in the Tampa Tribune on 6/29/98, with the headline
"'Mad Props' for Slang". From that list: Mad: Very much. "He's making mad loot." Props: Respect. "You get mad props for that."
Nexis has citations for "mad props" back to 1995. (A music critic for
the Houston Chronicle picked up on the phrase and used it a few times
that year.) But a search on rap lyric sites finds uses of the phrase
back to 1991 (e.g., Prince Rakeem, "Ooh, We Love You Rakeem"). Even
Usenet has a cite from '91 (from a Princeton address, no less): Message-ID: <email-address-deleted> Date: 12 Aug 91 18:07:11 GMT The track is one of my favorites at the moment. I give them MAD props.
> The presumed etymology is:
> (1) proper respects (as in pay my proper respects)
> (2) propers
> (3) props
>
> This all makes sense, but the "mad" in "mad props"
> does not. I don't even recall seeing anyone
> attempting to explain the "mad" part.
> I make the wild guess that it might have come from
> "Made my Props to Ell-ing-Ton",
> where the first and third words were emphasized
> (perhaps in a rap song) and the middle word got lost.
> Maybe it sounded more like
> "Mad' my Props"
[...]
No, as Mike Lyle mentioned, "mad" is a common enough intensifier. From
the latest OED entries: mad, a. 7. c. slang (orig. U.S. in African-American usage). Used as a general term of approbation: (a) remarkable, appealing, exciting, wild; excellent, cool; (b) (in later use, as modifier, with stronger implications of extremity or abundance): unrestrained, total; copious, profuse; much. Originally associated with U.S. jazz music, the term enjoyed a revival in Britain and the United States in the 1990s, esp. among participants in the dance-music and rave culture of the 1990s.
Earliest citation given is 1941 for sense (a) and 1991 for sense (b).
Strangely, OED doesn't seem to have "props" or "propers" listed yet.
--Ben