Blogs: Pandammonia 
The world that revolves around Caity Ross.
“my bad” what?
I have noticed the expression “my bad” appear on the internet in various locations and wondered about it. It sounds unacceptable to me but clearly not to others. I wonder how widespread its use will become. I asked Google and it told me about zen haiku, where there is a bit of a discussion about it.
I’ve never heard anyone actually say it though, but I’ll be listening out for it now.
[Update (21/02/05 18.14): after a discussion with one of my lecturers, if this is to become widespread, then other adjectives must be able to be used in the same way, for example, "my good", "his stupid" etc..]
[Update (26/02/05 14.08): Mark Liberman at the Language Log has commented on this post, pointing out Shakespeare's use of this type of expression. (Obviously my knowledge of English literature leaves something to be desired.) Mark gives a few examples of adjectives used as nominals, and I've thought of another one from the Black Death: "Bring out your dead!"
It seems that I have been accepting this construction for years after all.]
Anonymous at Monday 7th March, 2005 @ 1.44am GMT Europe/London
while the usage looks alot like a nominalisation of an adjective i am thinking maybe it is a case of the noun being dropped from the construction and the notion of error or mistake being conveyed as a projection of ‘bad’
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Pandammonium at Wednesday 23rd March, 2005 @ 12.08am GMT Europe/London
Well, I suppose it could be, but I’m not convinced. What would the noun have been? I would expect that if the noun is simply dropped, then people would have been using an expression “my bad <noun>”. To take an example from basketball, where this sort of thing seems to have originated, I would expect them to have said something like, “my bad throw!” if they misthrew the ball. That, to me, doesn’t sound any better just because there’s a noun there.