Pimpin'

Balderdash and Piffle was a program broadcast on the BBC a couple of years ago that traced the origins of the quirky everyday words of our fabulously broad lexicon. I remember a distinctly fiery debate concerning the first use of the word 'kinky' in the sense we understand today. Anyway, Slate has an article about the history of the verb 'pimp': what it connotes as well as the modern uses - Pimp my Ride, pimpin', pimpmobile. This brings light to some of the other examples of our backward contemporary vocabulary. It's socially recognised that the verb, to pimp, is not surrounded by the most positive or friendly ideology, and this translates across to other verbs or adjectives used in childhood slang. Words like wicked, sick, or gay, have all shifted from the given dictionary definition. Those guys at Oxford have a hell of a time keeping up too. The reason I bring this up is because it reminds me of that classic Alan Partridge moment - incorporating one word into another. Examples of this would be: fan-bloody-tastic or su-fucking-perb. There is a Greek term for this amalgamation which I cant recall at present, but I'll leave you with the eternal words of Alan from Norfolk: "Abso-bloody-exactly".