Learn English – What does the phrase “with your bad self” mean

american-englishmeaningphrase-meaning

A user, on Reddit, responded to a question, about what will become obsolete in the the next decade, with 'magazines.'

Then another user responded with 'True and awful. What if the tablet dies and I need to poop?' And finally a user replied to that with 'To the shampoo bottle with your bad self. In Canada we have English and French so that's twice the reading.'

I don't understand the phrase 'To the shampoo bottle with you bad self', I can understand that he's talking about resorting to reading the shampoo bottle instead of magazines or tablets and whatever, but the 'bad self' part, I don't understand.

I googled the phrase to no avail, most of the search results are that of a song by the name of 'Go on with Your Bad Self' by Consumer Rapport and a few links to UrbanDictionary but they are all in reference to the same phrase as the song title.

Best Answer

Your bad self is slang:

Currently cited by the OED as the first instance of the word superbad, Brown’s 1970 song “Super Bad” offers an excellent example of Brown engaging with popular African-American slang use of bad in the period. In this context, when Brown sings, “I’ve got soul and I’m super bad,” he’s offering up a boast about his talent, not angling towards any self-criticism.

enter image description here

As noted above, Brown’s positive spin on bad was not exactly new. Bad has been used to mean “good” or “excellent” since the 19th century, particularly in the jazz world, before fully exploding into African-American culture in the 1960s. Brown also deployed this sense of bad in other songs, most notably in his 1968 song “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud”, which begins his exhortation to the studio performers to play and/or sing “with your bad self.”

Related Topic