The dozens

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The dozens is an element of the African American oral tradition in which two competitors, usually males, go head-to-head in a improvised competition of often good-natured, ribald trash talk. They take turns insulting—cracking, West Coast dissin'", or ranking on—one another, their adversary's mother or other family member until one of them has no comeback. This is called playing the dozens or doin' the dozens, and sometimes dirty dozens, The dozens is a contest of personal power—of wit, self-control, verbal ability, mental agility and mental toughness. Each putdown, each "snap", ups the ante. Defeat can be humiliating; but a skilled contender, win or lose, may gain respect. The dozens is one of the contributing elements in the development of hip hop, especially the practice of battling.

The dozens can be a harmless game, or, if tempers flare, a prelude to violence. While the competition, on its face, is usually light-hearted, smiles sometimes mask real tensions. But in its purest form, the dozens is part of an African-American custom of verbal sparring, of woofin' and signifyin', intended to defuse conflict nonviolently, descended from an oral tradition rooted in traditional West African cultures.

"Yo momma", or "yo madra" are common, widely recognized argumentative rejoinder in African-American vernacular speech, is a cryptic and sometimes comical allusion to the dozens. Four examples would be, "Yo momma is so fat, when she jumps in the air, she gets stuck!" or "Yo momma is so stupid that she failed a survey!" or "Yo momma is so stupid she sold her car for gas money!" or "your momma is so stupid it took her 2 hours to watch 60 Minutes!"

History of the dozens

The term the dozens is believed to refer to the devaluing on the auction block of slaves who were past their prime, who were deformed, aged or who, after years of back-breaking toil, no longer were capable of hard labor. These enslaved human beings often were sold by the dozen. In Still Laughing to Keep from Crying: Black Humor, African American author and professor Mona Lisa Saloy writes:

An alternative history of the name is that the word "dozen" has nothing to do with the number twelve; that it is a modern survival of an English verb—"to dozen"—dating back at least to the fourteenth century and meaning "to stun, stupefy, daze" or "to make insensible, torpid, powerless." The object of the game is to stupefy and daze with swift and skillful speech.^{[citation needed]}

In 1929, the boogie-woogie pianist Speckled Red recorded a song entitled "The Dirty Dozens" which includes lyrics such as "I like yo' momma—sister, too/I did like your poppa—but your poppa would not do./I met your poppa on the corner the other day/I soon found out he was funny that way." (Kokomo Arnold, one of the most popular American blues musicians of the 1930s, also recorded much the same song under the title "The Twelves" in 1935.)

In 1959, Bo Diddley released "Say Man" on Checker 931 (with "The Clock Strikes Twelve" as the B-side)^[2], which featured him trading insults with his percussionist Jerome Green. The lyrics are not sung, but spoken conversationally over a musical background; this track has been described as a precursor of rap.

Alternative hip hop group The Pharcyde released a song on their debut album Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde entitled "Yo' Mama", the lyrics of which consist entirely of snaps.

In 2004, the Wayans Brothers, comedians Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Damon Wayans, released The Dozens, a Dozens game for mobile phones. The movies White Men Can't Jump, 8 Mile, and House Party include exchanges of snaps. In addition to that, the MTV "reality-TV" series Yo Momma, which stars Wilmer Valderrama (of That '70s Show fame) is entirely focused around coming up with "the dozens" to say to an opponent.

In 2008, the hip-hop group Hot Stylz released the single Lookin Boy, whose lyrics comprise a game of the dozens. In this song, the game is referred to as Lookin' Boy, as each insult is of the form "You are an <insult> lookin' boy."

The dozens in comedy

Richard Pryor referenced the dozens in his 1975 comedy routine "That Nigger's Crazy", saying that "white folks" did not know how to play. At the time, his stand up act was intended to bring out into the open the latent discrimination of African Americans that still existed in American society at that time, one decade after the Civil Rights Bill was enacted into law.

Aside from the Wayans Brothers with their dozens sketch on In Living Color, comedian-actor Eddie Murphy often based his stand-up routines on a reversal of the dozens, the purpose of which was boasting about one's own self rather than insulting someone else. Examples of this can be found in his known comedy albums, Comedian, Delirious, and the soundtrack to the film Eddie Murphy Raw. Other examples of the dozens in reverse, from other comedians, can be found in the cable TV program Def Comedy Jam, which was a production of Def Jam founder Russell Simmons's company.

George Carlin also referenced the dozens in his Occupation: Foole album while talking about his upbringing in Manhattan: "You wanna play the dozens?/Well the dozens is a game/But the way I fuck your mother/Is a goddamned shame."

In popular culture

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• In season 3, episode 02 of House, House mentions the dozens after Foreman insults Chase.

• An AMP Energy television commercial aired during National Hockey League broadcasts portrayed Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller competing against Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jean-Sébastien Aubin in the dozens followed by the tagline "A goalie must react in 0.5 seconds."^[3] Miller wins with a "yo-mamma" joke delivered in Mandarin Chinese.

• A skit from animation series Robot Chicken's Star Wars special has Luke Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine engage in a "yo' mamma" fight (with Star Wars-themed lines like, "Yo momma so stupid, she went to Bangkok to get a TIE Fighter."), which Luke wins.

• A similar competitive insult show called Vilification tennis has evolved at the MN Renaissance Festival. In the show, two teams of two volley insults back and forth in a stylized doubles tennis match.

• On the TV show, The Jeffersons, George Jefferson plays the dozens (actually referring to it as "the dozens") with the Caucasian-appearing biracial son of the Willises, Allan Willis, to test Allan's mettle as an African-American, with Allan passing the test.

• The 1992 animated film Bebe's Kids, which features black characters and a focus on black humor, features a "yo' momma" fight between two of the characters.

• In the 1996 film, The Nutty Professor, the title character has several "yo' mamma" fights with a stand-up comedian.

• The Jay-Z song "It's Hot (Some Like It Hot)", from his 1999 album Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter, includes the following line written in the 3rd person: "Everytime we play 'the dozens,' he's buggin out."

• Heist, the 2001 film by David Mamet, mentions "the dozens" in a scene where Gene Hackman threatens Sam Rockwell with a lead pipe after Rockwell makes a joke about Hackman's character's relationship with his wife. "Oh, so you want to play the dozens?" Hackman intones over Rockwell as the latter cowers on the floor.

See also

Look up Your mom in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

African American portal

• Avoidance speech (mother-in-law languages)
• Call and response
• Diss track
• Extempo
• Mother insult
• Roast (comedy)
• Vilification tennis
• Wolf ticket
• My Wife and Kids

References