Sure, here ya go, from www.dictionary.com: min-struhl-see. I find, though, that “Stupid !@#$%” works just as well in a pinch. 
Interesting. Thanks. When I saw it I thought of a root of minstrel as in “Wandering Minstrels” but couldn’t figure how this could be applied to droopy drawers. Any idea how it came to be so?
Curiouser and curiouser. When I looked it up on Answers it gives pretty much the same description as your link but all the side bar links are of AA links and interests. It was not until I got half way down the page here that I see a possible connection.
It refers to the “Blackface Minstrel Show” but this is the only AA connection I see. The rest of the def.s refer to Old English-type Merry Minstrels.
Any background you can give on this application?
Please forgive my curiosity but we are “Fighting Ignorance” here. 
Yes, it’s an old urban legend, actually. CD’s are hung from the mirror in the belief that it will jam police radar and/or lasers, or possibly blind traffic cameras (depending on who you ask). Some people go so far as to think certain types of music are more effective than others (again, what type depends entirely on who you ask). Doesn’t do squat of course, but that’s why people do it.
I’m not a guy, but I was the one who mentioned having felt dampness on the end of a freshly-peed penis before. The penises in question have all been circumsized.
I once saw a guy in his… probably LATE twenties, with a small child. He was holding the kid’s hand with one hand, and holding up his pants with the other. He kept having to stop to make adjustments, and at one point, I guess his grip slipped and his pants dropped AROUND HIS ANKLES and he had to stop and pull them back up. Never seen anything so stupid in my life.
Smack me too, though in my own defense, I’m currently dying of the flu and can barely think let alone type. Nyquil is my friend, but doesn’t help me speel.
Ooooh, my first official opportunity to fight “ignorance” on the Dope! Hope I don’t muck it up. And really, man, no worries about the curiosity. I just hope that I can point you in a useful direction.
Keeping all caveats about Wikipedia in mind, I give you this: Minstrel show - Wikipedia. It’s kind of lengthy, so I was able only to scan it with the limited time I have available (yep, taking short procrastination breaks on the paper I’m writing), but it’s interesting, and it gives you a fuller picture of minstrelsy as it applies to American history than does answers.com.
I think that I can fairly confidently guarantee that whenever black folks in the U.S. use the term, they’re referring to the racially-caricatured minstrelsy of the 19th and into the 20th centuries. And that is how I was using it, despite its other, more popular definitions. My guess would be that anyone in the U.S. who used the term would be using it in the sense that some culture, etc. is being caricatured, if not specifically African-Americans or what some would deem to be African-American culture.
As for how the term relates to droopy pants: Well, I didn’t mean to insinuate that the fashion in question relates specifically to African-American culture (though I wouldn’t be surprised if it did in some way, more specifically as it relates to the clothing that slave owners provided to slaves–really, why should the slave owners have cared whether or not the clothes fit properly?). (For those who might want a cite, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to dig one up (hence my care with my language above)). More than anything, I was using the term with regard to the way that the African-Americans who do this kind of stuff (and don’t even get me started on those goddamned doo rags!) 
fulfill the lowered expectations that “X” number of people in non-black culture have of African-Americans. That is to say dishevelled, slovenly, and in many other ways outliers of conventional fashion, taste, mores, and behavior.
I hope this helps to clear things up at least a little.
:eek: Or so hilarious! What a tool, man. The lengths that some people will go to in order to…well, fit in, I guess. Maybe it’ll be out of fashion by the time that poor baby grows up.
And i hope u fel betur sun. 
Refuah shlemah, speedy healing, and all that good stuff.
Tahnk yuo. I apprechiate the kind wrds. ooooohhh, look! SHINY!
FWIW, as a white (and American) person with no particular involvement in anything that could be termed “African American culture” (I have a number of black friends, but they are probably the kind of blacks that some other blacks accuse of trying to “be white”) I actually had to think about the connection to the minstrel shows. When I hear the word “minstrel” I think of people playing lutes and such while dressed like Robin Hood.
The thing about shaking vs. dabbing is that if you shake, you don’t know what trajectory the drop will take. At a urinal, that’s not a big deal, because the urinal covers pretty much an entire half-hemisphere, from the point of view of the unit in question. With a toilet though, if you’re standing, it’s a lot easier for the drop to end up somewhere it shouldn’t. Thus, dabbing.
Li’l Pluck- Great reply and nice going on your first ignorance fighting post. That makes sense in the broad “unflattering characterization”. I noticed your “Guest” status and start date for the first time and wish to welcome you here to the SDMB. Welcome! With intelligent and insightful posts like this I know you will do well here and hope you’ll take the leap to membership.
Thanks for the info. Consider ignorance fought!
Uh, I’m pretty sure the guys wearing their pants low (which is the style universally, BTW - nobody of any race is wearing their jeans at waist level these days, and often their jeans aren’t baggy at all, just tugged down quarter to mid-butthocks), are getting laid left & right. Which is the point. Any opinions otherwise are as irrelavant as the people holding them. Is that hard to “get”?
What’s hard to get is the reason they are getting laid. I don’t think I, personally, could stop laughing long enough to get in the sack with someone who dressed like that.
Aww, shucks! :o Thank you very much, Nic2004! And yes, I’m leaning strongly towards membership (at which time I reckon I’ll do my official “Hey, y’all” the way that I’ve seen done by other newbies); I just wanted to get whatever I could out of the test drive, y’know?
And “intelligent and insightful posts”? [SALLY FIELD] They like me! They really like me! [/SALLY FIELD]
Unfortunately, I’m not so sure that everyone else agrees, which brings me to…
[QUOTE=pizzabrat]
Uh, I’m pretty sure the guys wearing their pants low (which is the style universally, BTW - nobody of any race is wearing their jeans at waist level these days, and often their jeans aren’t baggy at all, just tugged down quarter to mid-butthocks), are getting laid left & right. Which is the point. Any opinions otherwise are as irrelavant as the people holding them. Is that hard to “get”?[/pizzabrat]
.
I wasn’t mentioned specifically in your post, but I can’t help thinking that your post is partly in reaction to what I’ve contributed here.
To recap: **Nic2004 ** said–in a forum about things that we just do NOT get–that he didn’t get the whole pants-so-low-that-you-have-to-hold-them-up-with-your-hand thing, and I agreed, adding that some people in the African-American community refer to this, especially when we see it on African-American boys and men, as minstrelsy. I approached it from this angle because (as I said in my post) that’s who we *mostly * see engaging in this trend, though I’ll note that I also acknowledged that other groups of people do this, too.
From there, it kind of snowballed–well, snowpelleted, really–when Nic2004 asked for clarification about my use of the word “minstrelsy,” and I responded. And then OpalCat related her experience with this trend (and she didn’t mention race, either), and I responded to her post. Then, pretty much, end of story.
We weren’t out to disparage an entire group of people, and we weren’t necessarily impugning their character or intelligence or what-have-you.*
I’m not sure, then, why this has touched such a nerve with you. (At least that’s the way your post comes across to me.) And for the record, I understand that my opinion on a multitude of things is irrelevant to a multitude of people (don’t most of us?), but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t air it, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that my humanity ought to be reduced to mere insignificance because of it. (Though I am aware that I am indeed considered a mere insignificance by a multitude of people, but that’s beside the point.)
And may I please have a cite for that “nobody of any race is wearing jeans at waist level these days,” b/c I see people of all races (not all people, but many more than you acknowledge) wearing their jeans in just such a manner. So, no, the look in question is certainly not universal.
BTW, just so you don’t think I live under a rock, I’m a college student, and I’m around younger people all the time (I say “younger” b/c I’m in my 30’s), and I understand that the look you describe is prevalent among the younger set. I have seen, though, and many times, others who do wear their pants very baggy and waaaay below the quarter to mid-buttocks range that you describe, and it’s that look to which I believe Nic2004 was referring.
And yeah, whether it’s quarter-buttocks, mid-buttocks, or sub-buttocks, and whether it helps the baggy-pants wearer get laid left-and-right (and bless their hearts if it does!) it’s still a look that’s difficult for some of us to “get.”
*I think you get that we weren’t trying to insult an entire group of people, i.e., African-American boys and men, and while the intent was not to question anyone’s character, it does look rather silly (to some of us, anyway) when you’re walking down the street and you’re constantly forced to do what a halfway decent and properly-sized belt could do (and you sometimes fail in this regard, as **OpalCat ** relayed), and with much less expenditure of energy, y’know?
Woah-ho - it wasn’t that serious. I wasn’t responding just to you, first of all. And as for nobody wearing their jeans at their waist - I meant nobody cool. I was hyperbolically referring to mainstream fashion of low-rise jeans. Check out any line of designer jeans and you’ll notice that most fits advertise that they rest below the waist. And as for you (plural) and your opinion being irrelevant, I meant to the guys wearing their jeans low. They’re not trying to bed you, so it doesn’t matter to them that you think their style looks stupid.
BTW, as for why such a style could be considered sexy rather than stupid - it’s the fact that its such a fragile look. It takes daring and finesse to make such an unorthodox fit look pleasing. The extreme examples in a couple of your (plural) anectdotes are probably universally accepted as failures. I’d guess that the guy holding the kid with the baby with his pants around the ankle looked just as ridiculous to the people he was trying to impress as he did to you. That’s what makes those who are able to pull it off look so impressive (to those who do “get” it), the fact that they could so easily get it wrong, but they didn’t.
Think about the ripped jeans fad of old. It’s easy to rip jeans poorly and make them just look bad. Ripping them so that they look fashionable is a bit more of a feat.
See also the bed head look, scruffy facial hair, distressed clothing, wrinkled clothing, tucking half of your shirt in, popped collars, patched clothing…
I never got the idea of intentionally ripping jeans, either. It still amazes me that people did this. I wore plenty of ripped up jeans, mind you, but they started out new and I just wore them out.
:smack: So, so sorry about that. Y’know, I’ve been lurking here for (I haven’t counted how many) months, and I’ve gotten used to some of the other Dopers’ styles (I think), but I guess I just haven’t gotten used to yours. Hopefully, my getting-to-know-you-and-your-style filter will calibrate itself properly the more I become familiar with your postings.
And, fashion trends? Feh. I REALLY just don’t get it. Then, again, I am SUCH the non-stereotypical gay guy. I mean, if you come over to my apartment, it’s like, “Oh, that boxspring in the middle of the floor? Just step over it, child–it won’t bite you.” And believe me, that’s no hyperbole. (Okay, okay–the boxspring is actually not *in the middle * of the floor–it takes up just a little piece of the floor near one of the living room walls. But what a conversation piece, right?) 
Oh, and I’ve often seen guys (20’s to early/mid 30’s, I’d guess) going to work wearing the SEVERE bedhead look :eek: (and, sometimes, with jacket and tie) :eek: :eek: , and I’m like, “Wow, I wonder if they went to their job interviews like that.”
I know! That kind of sucks. I figure there are a lot of poor judges of distance, erring on the side of caution, or else they never learned good smooth braking technique. I started to hate it when I got a hybrid. One of the cool things about a hybrid is the way the engine totally cuts off when it’s in drive and stopped with the brake held down. Then as soon as you give it gas, the engine fires up again as though it hadn’t even stopped. It’s kind of annoying to have to stop the engine, start it again, stop it again, etc. So I’m careful to stop in the right place the first time. After that, if they pull up more ahead of me, I don’t feel I have to move again until the light changes. Unless there’s a long line of cars in the turn lane and the only way someone could get in was if I moved up.
Li’l Pluck- For what it’s worth I took pizzabrat’s post to be a bit hostile as well. I thought your reply to be quite to the point. I see where pizzabrat has since clarified the post.
As to pizzabrat’s comment:
We clearly have differing ideas of what constitutes being cool. The fact that someone follows every goofy fad that comes down the pike is not it.
I remember everyone thinking they looked cool in the disco polyester clothes or the Urban Cowboy shirts and boots. Then someone, somewhere said that “that is no longer cool, this is!” and everyone wishing to appear cool ran out and followed suit.
Johanna- that is an interesting insight on the hybrids. I wasn’t aware of the stopping effect. I’m glad to see someone else looks in the mirror and tries to accommodate cars attempting to get into turn lanes. I was beginning to feel I was alone in this.