I’ve been hearing this term pop up with greater and greater regularity. I had my two kids at a restaurant with another friend the other night and her son 12 made the comment to my son 11, that a certain style of shirt “was so totally ghetto” which prompted my son to ask if another style was “ghetto” or not.
I (and the mother) asked them both to be quiet and asked my son later if he knew what ghetto really (IMO) meant. He said he thought it meant to “get it”. I told him I did not think this was the intent given the dismissive and disparaging way the other boy was saying it and told him to cease and desist using it.
To make matters more complicated in the last few months I have seen hispanic rap stars on TV affectionately describing their family’s behavior as “totally ghetto” and seen threads using it as a technical description.
So if ghetto is not the n word or specifically attached to black people then what is it? A sly pejorative way of referring to poor people? The n word gone multi-cultural? A new technical term? A term of affection?
Does it have a specfic definition and meaning? I don’t want my kid using it but how aggravated should I be if I hear his friends using it? It really bad or just annoying and harmless?
“Ghetto” simply refers to very poor neighborhoods, in otherwords, errr, ghetos. The slang term, as far as I have heard it, is a reference to something being of poor quality or cheap. A slightly more humorouos way to use it is to describe something hastilly put together out of junk, such as my “ghetto desk lamp” of which I am quite fond.
“Ghetto” simply refers to very poor neighborhoods, in otherwords, errr, ghettos. The slang term, as far as I have heard it, is a reference to something being of poor quality or cheap. A slightly more humorouos way to use it is to describe something hastilly put together out of junk, such as my “ghetto desk lamp” of which I am quite fond.
In my personal experience (sorry, no cites), to say something is ghetto is to say that it is something you would expect to see in a ghetto, specifically that it is cheap or has a quality associated with poor people. For instance, you might refer to a couch that has been patched up with duct tape as “ghetto” (the implication being, I guess, that people with money would just get a new couch in that situation). I think this fits the use of “ghetto” in the thread you linked to, as the OP in that thread built his own water cooling system using materials that might have been lying around his house, as if he could not afford a standard one.
When I first started hearing “ghetto” used in this sense (back in the early to mid 90s), it was being used by some black friends I knew in college, and in rap music, and at that time the term did have a strong association with black people. I think it has lost some of that sense over time and is being used in a more general fashion, but I suspect some of that is still there, or at least an association with poor minorities. Certainly it is a perjorative term with regards to the poor, if nothing else, and some people may (rightly, in my opinion) regard it as having racial overtones.
astro, no need to worry: “ghetto” has taken on an entirely different meaning than old timers may suspect – meaning it doesn’t necessarily refer to a neighborhood. It can have a few connotations:
[ul]
1.) “Yo, that ride [i.e., car] is ghetto!”
This means that the vehicle’s quality is suspect. Not of the highest quality. Sticking a hangar in your tv to replace an antenna is ghetto.
2.) “Yo, he is so ghetto!”
This means that a person could be one of many things:
[list]
a.) May be cheap, and he’s being ghetto by stealing ketchup packets from McDonald’s for home; or, even more ghetto, his idea of a big date is going out to Mickey D’s to pinch said ketchup.
b.) May be acting in a fashion many people might call “urban.” Uses ebonics, wears baggy clothes, listens to hip-hop. This is not used pejoratively, and is in fact usually used by others who are likely “ghetto” themselves. There is no racial implication here, and of course one need not actually live in a ghetto. There is often a pride in ghetto-ness, however, as a sign of authenticity for many who actually do live in urban areas.[/ul]
3.) None of these should be confused with the even more specific “ghetto fabulous,” which implies a street-smart hipness, attitude and fashion-wise. This is often reserved for rappers (L’il Kim in particular), pimps, and such. We should all be so lucky.
[/list]
So, in reference to the child’s comment regarding a shirt: it’s entirely possible the kid doesn’t know its slang usage and it just mimicking pop culture. If the kid is more savvy, he was likely saying that the shirt in question was in fact one that might be worn by a hip-hop head. What did the shirt look like?
Back when I was an editor of my college’s weekend magazine (late '90s), 3 AM layout delirium would find us sniping about all the social and fashion faux pas that we saw on campus that week – which then became fair game for our mag’s very broad crosshairs. Soon, every other sentence out of our mouth was, “That is so ghetto!”
We used it when referring to people, trends, and lame story pitches by uncosmopolitan freshman that aspired to be clever or hip but were clearly just pretentious bulls**t. (Although one could say the same about us.) The only connection that our new rallying cry had to the urban “ghetto” was [po-mo ON] in our implicit criticism of the mindset behind nouveau riche conspicuous consumption, readily manifested in the “bling bling” of current gangsta chic.[/po-mo OFF]
More staid and PC-oriented staffers in the news department put the kibosh on our amply gratuitous use of the word. In defiance, we turned “ghetto” into “G-T-O”, after our paper’s practice of referring internally to its staffers via their initials. (And because code words are always hip.) People thought we were always talking about someone named “George T. Olmstead.”
Eventually, the GTO jig was up, so we converted it with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. This also allowed us to gossip safely about staid news staffers and uncosmopolitan freshman right under their noses. We took their initials and shouted across the newsroom as if we were a bunch of B-52 pilots:
“Can you believe Foxtrot-Golf-Tango did the horizontal mambo with Tango-Charlie-Bravo? That is so Golf-Tango-Oscar!”
I could have sworn the term was originally jewish in origin. Coming from the Nazi imposed holocaust. I’m unfamilar with how the switch in culture came to be. I suppose though that the urban “ghettos” were cheap and that is the similarity between the jewish ghettos and the modern ghettos.
The term ghetto was first used in Venice in 1516. It comes from an Italian word for Foundry or Ironworks, which was typically a smelly disgusting part of town where undesirable people were forced to live.
These areas were usually fenced off by a moat or a hedge to designate its boundaries. Jews were allowed outside during the day hours, but at night they had to stay in.
My buddies and I use “ghetto” to describe something that is of poor quality, but has a specialness to it. Something of which we are fond, but could be in a better condition. Example: “My '89 station wagon is so ghetto; it’s a sweet ride despite its crappy brakes.”
I’m currently in college and actually have a course called the Ghetto. In fact i’m studying for my midterm right now. The word ghetto has no economic connections. It deals with the segragation of people due to race, ethnicity or religion. In fact there can be white ghettos. People have come to associate the ghetto with slums which are where the poor people live. The first use of the term ghetto has actually been traced to like 30 some odd BC.
Wow. My first post and its basically me studying for a mid term.
I think the term has taken on an additional connotation fairly recently in the rap community, having to do with “street credibility”. If a rapper grew up in a bad neighborhood, and then raps about crime and etc., it is said that he or she has “ghetto cred” or his or her “ghetto diploma”. If the rapper is of the pre-packaged “Vanilla Ice” variety, he or she has no ghetto credibility.
Therefore, as I have understood the term of late, “ghetto” equates to real, street-level, honest, etc.
My experience with the phrase had to do with Valkyrie’s and my wedding celebration with both families up in New Hampshire. One of her two nephews, the eternal wiseass, threw the phrase in during a pause in Val’s speech right after “This celebration is…” (or something very similar).
Needless to say we took it as a comment on the quality of the whole deal and he was sure he was gonna get his narrow butt whipped, but we forgave him eventually. He has repeatedly used the term since, and it’s always made sense to me if I assume he’s commenting on the lousy quality of the subject at hand.