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Dozens (game)

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The dozens is an oral tradition in the United States in which two acquaintances go head to head in a contest of often good-natured, ribald "trash-talk". They take turns insulting; "burning", "cracking", "ranking", "sparking", "janking", "snapping", "checking", or "riding" — on one another, their adversary's mother, or other family member until one of them has no comeback. Similar traditions exist in other western cultures.

In the United States, this is called playing the dozens, doin' the dozens, or sometimes dirty dozens. The dozens is a contest of personal power—of wit, verbal ability, and mental agility, but especially of mental toughness and self-control. If one lashes out in anger, that person automatically loses the contest. Each putdown, or 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 freestyle battling. The opponent is often considered being served.

History and practice

The dozens can be a harmless game of casual, good-natured jibes, an exchange of malicious insults, taunts or, if tempers flare, a prelude to physical violence. And all it is, is talkin bout the others mama. While the competition on its face is usually light-hearted, smiles sometimes mask real tensions. In its purest form, the dozens is part of a custom of verbal sparring, of "woofin'" and "signifyin'" ostensibly intended to defuse conflict nonviolently, descended from oral traditions of indigenous West African cultures.

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

The dozens has its origins in the slave trade of New Orleans where deformed slaves—generally slaves punished with dismemberment for disobedience—were grouped in lots of a 'cheap dozen' for sale to slave owners. For a Black to be sold as part of the 'dozens' was the lowest blow possible.[1]

"Yo' momma" is a common, widely recognized retort in slang. It is a cryptic and sometimes comical allusion to the dozens.

Children have been known to express contempt or defiance by reciting a short poem that refers to the dozens, but in which the insults are mostly implied:

Yo' momma, yo' daddy, Yo' bald-headed granny
Yo' momma, Yo' daddy, Yo' sista, too. Go tell them bitches to go back to the zoo.
Yo' momma, Yo' daddy, Yo' bald-headed granny,
She ninety-nine she thinks she's fine she had a date with Frankenstein

The dozens in literature and the performing arts

Kokomo Arnold, one of the most popular American blues musicians of the 1930s, released a song Twelves (Dirty Dozens) that includes lyrics such as:

I like yo' momma - sister, too
I did like your poppa - but your poppa wouldn't do
I met your poppa on the corner the other day
I soon found out he was funny that way.

In Zora Neale Hurston's, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), there is reference to "playin' de dozens" in front of Joe's store.

George Carlin talks about playing the dozens on his Grammy-winning album The Class Clown.

"You wanna know the dozens, well the dozens is a game, but the way I fucked your mother, is a goddamn shame"

Alternative hip hop group The Pharcyde released a song on their debut album Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde entitled "Ya' Mama", the lyrics of which consist entirely of snaps. A remix of this song is used as the theme of MTV's trash-talk show Yo Momma (see below for more information about the show.) In addition, the Australian hip-hop group Butterfingers have a song called "Yo Momma" that includes the chorus "Yo Momma's on the top of my things-to-do list."

The book Snaps (1994), written by James Percelay, is a compendium of over 450 jokes. Its popularity gave rise to sequels Double Snaps (1995), Triple Snaps (1996), and Snaps 4 (1998). The books use the epithet "your mother", as opposed to the more common "yo' momma". The book series spawned a television series titled Snaps which ran briefly on HBO. The movies White Men Can't Jump, Remember the Titans, 8 Mile, and House Party include exchanges of snaps.

The Keenan Ivory Wayans TV show In Living Color regularly featured a game show segment titled The Dirty Dozens and parodies of popular game shows, such as Wheel of Dozens and Family Dozens. Their brothers, Shawn and Marlon have also been involved in these, so much so that in 2004, they released a mobile phone game based on The Dozens.

The book A Portrait of Yo Mama As a Young Man (2005), written by Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts, is a postmodern take on the dozens which redefines the form through the use of reflexivity, absurdism, and anti-humor. In addition to jokes, the book contains charts, poetry, a résumé, and various other short humor pieces. The title is derived from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The title of the Mexican film Y tu mamá también (literally, "And your mother, too") is taken from a scene in the movie wherein the two young male protagonists do their equivalent of the dozens.

In 2006, MTV premiered a game show titled Yo Momma executive produced and hosted by Wilmer Valderrama. Contestants face off in playing the dozens. The person judged to be the funniest wins a cash prize. The four winners from that week then face off in a final round, where the weekly winner gets another cash prize and additional prizes as well.

Fictional artist MC Hawking (a gangsta rapping parody of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking) has a song called "The Dozens" on his CD A Brief History of Rhyme: MC Hawking's Greatest Hits, where he raps "yo momma" jokes like "Yo momma's such a slut, the other night I had to park my dick on her ass and wait an hour to get in."

There are phenomena similar to the dozens outside the African American community. In Britain, for instance, the analogous usage is "your mum" or "your mam" or "yer maw". Derogatory barbs focus almost exclusively on impugning the sexual integrity of the target's mother.

Historically, similar verbal competitions were practiced in other cultures. Ancient Germanic cultures, including the Norse and Anglo-Saxons, practiced a ritual exchange of insults known as flyting, which is similar in function to the dozens. In sixteenth-century Scotland, the term flyting was used to describe an exchange of abusive poems by poets. Arab poets exchanged creative insults in naqa'id, a practice continued in the zajal verbal jousting of present-day Lebanon. American cowboys in the late nineteenth century participated in cussing contests, the winners of which were sometimes rewarded with new saddles.

Some use your mom jokes as a riposte and often a counter-riposte to any insulting statement made.

In recent years, your mom jokes have also become used for statements that have no hostile or pejorative intent: "I love to eat ice cream." "Your mom loves to eat ice cream!" The phrase can also be used to skew another person's words: "Ramen noodles are cheap and easy." "Your mom is cheap and easy!"; "Primates occupy an interesting ecological niche." "I pri-mated with your mom's ecological niche!"

Quips like "That's what your mom said (last night)" or "That's what ''she'' said" (wherein "she" does not necessarily refer to somebody's mother, but instead an unnamed, hypothetical woman) are also sometimes used to reply humorously to anything vaguely suggestive.

Examples of snaps

What follow are a few sanitized, less colorful examples of snaps in the dozens.

"Yo' Momma's so fat..."

  • "...she makes concrete look like quick-sand."
  • "...and so old that you can't tell the wrinkles from the rolls."
  • "...Jerry Springer had to do a documentary on it."
  • "...she doesn't give people STD's, she gives them cholesterol."
  • "...she went on the scales and it came up with your phone number."
  • "...she pressed up on the lift and it went down."
  • "...even her shadow weighs two hundred pounds."
  • "...she makes parachutes look like thongs."
  • "...her belt size is equator."
  • "...her dress size is 'house'."
  • "...when she cuts herself she bleeds chicken wings."
  • "...she turned around and it was her birthday."
  • "...she fell in love and broke it."
  • "...she's on both sides of the family tree."
  • "...when she sits around the house, she sits AROUND the house."
  • "...that she sweats butter."
  • "...that she uses diet soap."
  • "...she went to an All You Can Eat buffet and they went broke."
  • "...she went out in high heels and came back in sandals."
  • "...that when she takes off her shoes, they smile."
  • "...that McDonald's buys oil from her."
  • "...that when she jumps for joy, she gets stuck."
  • "...that when she goes out in a yellow raincoat, people yell 'Taxi! Taxi!'."
  • "...that when she goes out in a red blouse, people yell 'Kool-Aid,Kool-Aid!'."
  • "...she's the reason the Underground Railroad was underground."
  • "...when she goes out camping, the bears have to hide their food."
  • "...the last time she saw 90210, she was on a scale."
  • "...everytime she rolls over, they have to redraw the map."
  • "...she's on the seafood diet; she sees food and eats it."
  • "...she wore out three forks in one meal."
  • "...the last time she saw her feet, dinosaurs walked the Earth."
  • "...that when she got lost, her picture was on all four sides of the milk carton."
  • "...when I saw her weight, I mistook it for her phone number."
  • "...when she broke her leg gravy poured out."
  • "...every time she turns around, her butt takes out a row of houses."
  • "...she plays pool with the planets"
  • "...she covers three hemispheres."
  • "...she went to Japan, and everybody yelled, 'Godzilla! Godzilla!'."
  • "...she shows up on radar."
  • "...she shows up on satellite pictures."
  • "...she eats Wheat Thicks."
  • "...when she sits down in a movie theater, she sits next to EVERYONE."
  • "...the sun orbits around HER!"
  • "...everytime she walks in high heels, she strikes oil."
  • "...when she goes out to the country, a herd of cows starts looking nervous."
  • "...she sat on a rainbow and skittles came out."
  • "...she sat on a dollar and four quarters came out."
  • "...Martin Lawrence calls her Big Momma."
  • "...her chair committed suicide."
  • "...when she wears a Malcolm X jacket, helicopters land on her back."
  • "...her blood type is 'Ragu'."
  • "...she uses a mattress as a tampon."
  • "...she walked in front of the TV and I missed 35 episodes of my favorite show."
  • "...when she walked in front of the T.V., I missed all the Star Wars movies."
  • "...she has her own zip code."
  • "...that when God said, "Let there be light," He had to ask her to move out of the way."
  • "...her hips can hurt small children."
  • "...when she goes to the beach, the whales jump out of the water and sing We Are Family."
  • "...when she goes to the beach, not even the whales sing We Are Family.
  • "...She has more Chins than a Chinese Phone Book."
  • "...astronomers mistake her for Jupiter."
  • "...England claimed her for new land."
  • "...the law says that on hot days she has to keep moving around, so everybody gets equal amounts of shade."
  • "...her husband sued her for trying to eat him."
  • "...her husband got lost in her rolls for a week."
  • "...when her husband wants to make love, he has to slap her thigh and ride the wave in."
  • "...when she walks past the Sun, people think it's an eclipse."
  • "...she has her own gravitational field."
  • "...her favorite book is the Denny's menu."
  • "...The Iron Man Race was to run around her once, and everyone died before they finished!"
  • "...she uses SUV's for roller skates."
  • "...to get her through a doorway they grease her and PUSH"
  • "...if you want to know her measurements, you have to call NASA."
  • "...when she slides down a rainbow, skittles pop out."
  • "...when she steps on the scale, it reads: 'TO BE CONTINUED'"
  • "...when she gets on the scale, it says, 'Only one family at a time!'"
  • "...when she goes to the club, they have to raise the roof."
  • "...when her beeper goes off, people think she is backing up."
  • "...when she gets ashy, people think it's a snowstorm."
  • "...her idea of going on a diet is only having one cow."
  • "...when she jumps off a a tall building, people think that the sky is falling."
  • "...when she goes to an island, it sinks."
  • "...the last time she went swimming, it caused a tidal wave."
  • "...she got kicked out of California, 'cause they don't want any more earthquakes."
  • "...she's the reason California is sinking into the sea."
  • "...Her belly button doesn't have lint, it has sweaters."
  • "...She walked into a Slim Jim factory. How ironic."
  • "...when i have sex with her i roll over twice and i"m still on the bich

"Yo' Momma's so old..."

  • "...she babysat Adam."
  • "...when I slapped her back, her boobs fell off."
  • "...Jesus Christ still owes her a few dollars."
  • "...her breast milk is powdered."
  • "...when God said 'Let there be light,' she flipped the switch."
  • "...her blood type is 'dust'."
  • "...when the Big Bang went off, she said, 'You kids turn that damn noise down!'"
  • "...She got gang-banged by the Flintstones."
  • "...Her birth certificate says 'expired'."
  • "...when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, she said, 'Ain't that just like kids these days!'"
  • "...I told her to act her age and she dropped dead."
  • "...her birth certificate is written in Roman numerals."
  • "...her birth certificate is engraved on a stone"
  • "...her birth certificate is in heiroglyphics."
  • "...she likes to look at cave paintings and say, 'Look, I'm in this one, too!' "
  • "...there was a TV show about her... it's called Antiques Roadshow."
  • "...she sat behind Moses in Algebra."
  • "...she is not American, she's still a Colonist."
  • "...she says "I remember when brontosaurus burgers were a penny!"
  • "...she sings Rat-a-too-ee Rat-a-too-ee!
  • "...her social security number is 1."
  • "...she remembers Burger King when he was a prince."
  • "...her first boyfriend was King Tut."
  • "...She was a waitress at the last supper."
  • "...her first pet was a dinosaur."

"Yo' Momma's such a slut..."

  • "...she has more Wangs in her than a Chinese Phone Book."
  • "...she walks around with a mattress on her back."
  • "...she gives STDs through the phone."
  • "...the other night I had to park my dick on her ass and wait an hour to get in."
  • "...her bedroom has a ticket counter."
  • "...she's like a hardware store; it's five cents a screw."
  • "...she's like the city bus, everybody gets to ride."
  • "...on halloween, she's the treat."
  • "...Her bed's been declared a national monument."

"Yo' Momma's so ugly..."

  • "...When she walks into a bank, they turn the cameras off."
  • "...she could make a vibrator go limp."
  • "...when she looks in the mirror, her reflection ducks."
  • "...she can stick her face in dough and make gorilla cookies."
  • "...people dress up as her for Halloween."
  • "...Halloween's the one day of the year she doesn't need to wear a mask."
  • "...she makes Godzilla run away."
  • "...she makes you look good."
  • "...she was hired by the government to go scare Iraq, but she got banned as a Weapon of Mass Destruction."
  • "...when she's at a strip club, people pay her to keep her clothes ON."
  • "...she can make a blind man cringe."
  • "...whenever she goes out, she has to wears a sign saying 'Warning: May Cause Irritation'."
  • "...we have to hang a pork chop around her neck, just to get the dog to play with her."
  • "...she's not allowed at the zoo, the gorillas complained too much."
  • "...she was on a TV special called 'When Faces Attack'."
  • "...even Bill Clinton wouldn't have sex with her."
  • "...you don't need a gun to defend yourself, just show people your momma's picture."
  • "...when she looked out the window, she got arrested for mooning."
  • "...Ex-lax put a picture of her on the box and left it EMPTY."
  • "...that when she was born the doctor smacked the wrong end."
  • "...when she was born her incubator had tinted windows."
  • "...your daddy has to put a bag over her head every night."

"Yo' Momma's so poor..."

  • "...she has to go to KFC to lick people's fingers."
  • "...when she goes to McDonald's she gets food on layaway."
  • "...I saw her kicking a can down the street. I asked her what she was doin' and she said 'Moving'."
  • "...when I came to her house I walked through the front door and came out the back porch."
  • "...I saw her walking down the street with only one shoe on. I asked her if she had lost a shoe but she said 'No, I just found one!'"
  • "...she strips at Chuck E. Cheese's for tokens!"
  • "...I stepped on a cigarette, and she said 'Who turned the light off?'"
  • "...I asked her where the bathroom was, and she told me to pick a corner."
  • "...she always calls McDonald's 'the free napkin store.'"
  • "...she can't even afford a free car wash."
  • "...when I asked her why she was banging on the dumpster, she said, 'My kids locked me out.'"
  • "...when I rang the doorbell, I heard the toilet flush."
  • "...she stole out of the dollar store
  • "...she waves a Popsicle around and calls it air conditioning."
  • "...she was on Extreme Makeover Cardboard Edition."
  • "...that when somebody stepped on the cigarette she said, "who turned the heating off!"

"Yo' Momma's just like a..."

  • "...television. A 2 year old can turn her on."
  • "...Big Mac. Fat, greasy, and only worth a buck."
  • "...shotgun. Five cocks and she's loaded."
  • " ... microwave, have to push her buttons to get her working."

See also

References

  1. ^ Mona Lisa Saloy (2001). "Still Laughing to Keep from Crying: Black Humor". Louisiana Folklife Festival booklet. Retrieved 2005-11-15.
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