Okay, I get it.
The Big Booty Bread Co. (West 23rd Street between 7th & 8th, that's the owner's caricature on the front window) sells "badass cookies & cupcakes."
Booty. Badass. The play on words is duly noted.
But come on, can a Red Velvet Cupcake truly be peddled as "badass"?
Which got me to thinking...just where did the word "badass" originate anyway? Someone had to combine "bad" and "ass", but who and when?
Etymologists aren't totally sure. It seems this term for "tough guy" started to show up in 50's slang.
But what about the original "badass" gangstas before then? What were the legendary badasses of history called? Fearsome fellows like Atilla the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, William (think "Braveheart") Wallace...badasses before the word was coined to describe them as such. Somehow, pinning a label like rogue, knave, scoundrel or scamp on any one of them just doesn't seem to have the right gravitas to attach to such illustrious men of mayhem. Hannibal a "ruffian"? I don't think so.
Nowadays, it seems "badass" just isn't what it used to be, not when poseurs like Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson can pass for what is known in our acronym-crazed world as a BAMF. So maybe calling cookies and cupcakes badass isn't such a stretch after all. But really, $2.95 for a Triple Chocolate cookie?
The Big Booty Bread Co. (West 23rd Street between 7th & 8th, that's the owner's caricature on the front window) sells "badass cookies & cupcakes."
Booty. Badass. The play on words is duly noted.
But come on, can a Red Velvet Cupcake truly be peddled as "badass"?
Which got me to thinking...just where did the word "badass" originate anyway? Someone had to combine "bad" and "ass", but who and when?
Etymologists aren't totally sure. It seems this term for "tough guy" started to show up in 50's slang.
But what about the original "badass" gangstas before then? What were the legendary badasses of history called? Fearsome fellows like Atilla the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, William (think "Braveheart") Wallace...badasses before the word was coined to describe them as such. Somehow, pinning a label like rogue, knave, scoundrel or scamp on any one of them just doesn't seem to have the right gravitas to attach to such illustrious men of mayhem. Hannibal a "ruffian"? I don't think so.
Nowadays, it seems "badass" just isn't what it used to be, not when poseurs like Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson can pass for what is known in our acronym-crazed world as a BAMF. So maybe calling cookies and cupcakes badass isn't such a stretch after all. But really, $2.95 for a Triple Chocolate cookie?
Killer Cookies
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