“But Is Bada-Bing Really An Official Part Of The English Language?”

“Bada-bing.”

From “Cyber-Neologoliferation,” James Gleick’s fun 2006 New York Times Magazine article about his visit to the offices of the Oxford English Dictionary, an explanation of how the word “bada-bing” came to be listed in the OED:

“Still, a new word as of September is bada-bing: American slang ‘suggesting something happening suddenly, emphatically, or easily and predictably.’ The Sopranos gets no credit. The historical citations begin with a 1965 audio recording of a comedy routine by Pat Cooper and continue with newspaper clippings, a television news transcript and a line of dialogue from the first Godfather movie: ‘You’ve gotta get up close like this and bada-bing! you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.’ The lexicographers also provide an etymology, a characteristically exquisite piece of guesswork: ‘Origin uncertain. Perh. imitative of the sound of a drum roll and cymbal clash…. Perh. cf. Italian bada bene mark well.’ But is bada-bing really an official part of the English language? What makes it a word? I can’t help wondering, when it comes down to it, isn’t bada-bing (also badda-bing, badda badda bing, badabing, badaboom) just a noise? ‘I dare say the thought occurs to editors from time to time,’ Simpson says. ‘But from a lexicographical point of view, we’re interested in the conventionalized representation of strings that carry meaning. Why, for example, do we say Wow! rather than some other string of letters? Or Zap! Researching these takes us into interesting areas of comic-magazine and radio-TV-film history and other related historical fields. And it often turns out that they became institutionalized far earlier than people nowadays may think.'”

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