I've been hearing this more and more lately... it's peppering my friend's speech, I heard it on TV, now it's in the comics... Where did this (IMHO) stupid phrase come from? It makes no sense! Stop using it!!!! *pant, wheeze, gasp*
OK, tantrum over.

By Enchens on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 02:23 pm:

I first heard it about 10 years ago, in college. Being from the country, I thought it was a city thing.

By Imamommyx4 on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 02:32 pm:

My nieces have been using that for years. And I'm beginning to hear it in adults that I work with. It annoys the behoogers out of me.

By Kaye on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:02 pm:

I used that phrase in high school. I want to say it come from the "valley girl" movement.

By Kate on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:07 pm:

Oh this drives me crazy, too!!! I absolutely HATE it and you're right, IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! Thank you for giving voice to all those who cringe and roll their eyes upon hearing it!!

By Reds9298 on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:11 pm:

I heard it in high school also. (roughly 14yrs. ago) I never hear it anymore though.

By Hlgmom on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:32 pm:

We used it in high school but have not heard it in years!

By Happynerdmom on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:33 pm:

Yeah, we used it in the 80's in high school. I remember my sister saying it all the time. Drove me crazy!(She still says it, come to think of it.) Ds says it. It sounds like it never really went away!

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:48 pm:

Pant, wheeze, gasp? LOL! I don't think I've ever heard it! At least not recently!

By Janet on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 03:54 pm:

I can safely say I've never heard it...even in the 80s! Guess I wasn't paying attention. I assumed it was a new phrase, maybe coming from some TV show that I've never seen, or a movie. Hmmm.

By Amecmom on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 04:22 pm:

Oh yes, I've heard it. It's not Valley Girl - it's Ghetto - as in urban.

This is from the Answer Man:

This phrase appears to spring from the slang of inner-city pick-up basketball games, where players probably found that uttering "my bad" was a lot snappier (and faster) than "It is entirely on my account that such a bad thing happened."

The phrase appeared in the 1986 book The Back-In-Your-Face Guide to Pick-Up Basketball, so we can assume that it was already fairly well established by the early '80s. It may even date back to the late '70s, but no one has yet found any non-anecdotal evidence.

There is a possibility that former NBA player Manute Bol, a Sudanese immigrant and not a native English speaker, invented the phrase. A 1989 story in USA Today reported:

After making a bad pass, instead of saying "my fault," Manute Bol says, "my bad." Now all the other Warriors say it too.
Although this citation came three years after the Back-In-Your-Face Guide was published, Bol had been in the United States since around 1980, so it's possible, though rather unlikely, that he inadvertently coined the phrase earlier and it spread through the pick-up basketball world before he brought it into the NBA.

From the basketball court, it spread to other sports, then on to non-athletic environments. In its early years, it was typically used by high school and college students. The phrase's inclusion in the 1995 movie Clueless gave it wide exposure, and probably doomed you to a lifetime of irkedness.

Sources: The Word Detective, The Mavens' Word of the Day, Language Log, Language Log, Part 2

Here's the link

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:ZP8Ku8jnTEYJ:yahoo.rogers.com/yahoo/answerman/index.jsp/+%22my+bad%27+%2Borigin&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Ame

By Kate on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 04:45 pm:

Wow, I'm SO glad I never heard it until recently!! I had no idea it had been around for so long! I blissfully went thru the eighties without hearing this idiotic phrase! If it's been around so long though, it's unlikely it will disappear.

By Nanaoie on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 05:49 pm:

One thing that drives me nuts is when these basketball/football /whatever players are being interviewed on TV and all they keep saying over and over is "know what i'm sayin?"
Now doesn't that say alot about the IQ?

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 08:03 pm:

Oh, you were talking about MY BAD! I thought you meant the pant, wheeze gasp!

I have definitely heard MY BAD! LOL! I don't use it very often. I'm more likely to say, Oops, I'm sorry, than Oops, my bad.

By Mrsheidi on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 08:08 pm:

Ha ha ha...welcome to my high school teaching world, ladies!!
What's worse is when a kid says "I'm straight."
(Which means, "I'm alright."))

Scenario: A kid starts talking in class while I'm talking, so instead of yelling at him for talking, I ask "Do you need something?"
He replies, "Nope. I'm straight."

DRIVES ME NUTS NUTS NUTS...

By Cybermommyx4 on Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 08:32 pm:

How about "aight" and "24/7/365" ?! OVERUSED. But, I agree, "my bad" is one of the most annoying phrases peppering people's speech these days....

By Crystal915 on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 12:46 am:

"My bad", means started back when I was a kid, and was an "urban" phrase, but is now so overused it's annoying. It actually does make sense, it's saying "My mistake"

By Insaneusmcwife on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 07:38 am:

that ones right up there with "not so much" they say that so much here it drives me crazy and I've caught my dh saying it. We were talking about moving into base housing and one of the other volunteers at Young Marines walked up and said " Ya I hear your not so much liking your living situation" dh responds "ah not so much!"

By Dawnk777 on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 07:50 am:

Emily's 8th grade teacher is driven crazy by the word "like!" It seems middle schoolers can't speak a sentence without saying the word a billion times, including my Emily!

By Kaye on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 08:02 am:

LOL in ER last night one of the docs used this phrase (victor).

By Karen~moderator on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 09:12 am:

blushing here...........I say it sometimes...............

By Kate on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 09:18 am:

'My mistake' or 'my fault' makes sense...but 'my bad' doesn't! My bad is unfinished...your bad what? I'm an English/writing major, so it doesn't take much to bring my grammar police instincts to full alert.

By Groovepickle on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 09:30 am:

Kate that is hilarious, our brains must think on a similar wavelength. I heard "My Bad" years ago and thought, my bad? "My bad what?" Maybe it means "Am I Bad?" And is a ridiculous contraction with no apostrophy (SP).
Groove

By Crystal915 on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 11:51 am:

Come on, everyone... every generation has their slang. "Groovy" "tubular" "rad", the list could go on. People GENERALLY don't say "my bad" without a proceeding "Oh, I forgot to do that" or something. Lighten up ladies LOL!!! You're dating yourselves **wink**

By Janet on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 12:11 pm:

I'm laughing at the "I'm straight." My response would be, what does your sexual orientation have to do with anything? LOL

By Missbookworm on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 02:04 pm:

LOL Janet! That's the first thing I thought of too!

By Insaneusmcwife on Saturday, February 11, 2006 - 08:07 am:

lol Janet. My dh torments my sister when she says stuff like that. He has asked her what her sexual orientation has to do with it and has also told her "well thats obvious, your pregnant aren't you." She once told him "don't trip" or "your trippin" He told here that he has been walking for X amount of years and does so just fine.