Did Bo Diddley's 1955 song "I'm A Man" Influence The Variant Colloquial Spelling "Mane" & Other Variant Spellings Of The Word "Man"

BBC Music, May 29, 2020

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a four part pancocojams post about variant colloquial spellings of the English word "man" such as "mane", "manye", "mehn" and others.

This post includes comments from several discussion threads of YouTube sound files or videos about how Bo Diddley pronounces the word "man" in his 1955 hit song "I'm A Man" and in his performances of that song.

Also, Excerpt #5 of this post provides comments about Muddy Water's pronounciation of the word "man" as documented in his Blue song "Mannish Boy". Both Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters were from Mississippi. 

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/01/theories-about-origins-use-of-variant.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II provides my Editor's notes also provides one online excerpt and one complete reprint about the origin of or meanings of two variant colloquial spellings for the word "man" (the word "manze" in Sheng, a Pidgin language used in Kenya Tanzania, and Uganda; and the word "mehn" that is used in Nigerian Pidgin English (and elsewhere).

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/01/examples-of-variant-colloquial-words.htmlfor Part III of this pancocojams series. Part III documents examples of variant colloquial spelling for the word "man" from some YouTube discussion threads About Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man" Record.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/01/examples-of-variant-colloquial-words_25.html for Part IV of this pancocojams series. That post documents examples of variant colloquial words for "man" from some discussion threads for YouTube videos of some contemporary African music genres.

The content of this post is presented for linguistic and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Bo Diddley for his cultural legacy. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and a thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
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Click the tags below for other pancocojams posts about Bo Diddley and his song "I'm A Man". 

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HOW THE WORD "MANE" IS PRONOUNCED & RELATED NOTES  [Added Sept. 22, 2021]
"Mane" is one of several African American Vernacular English spellings for the colloquial referent "man". That word is pronounced by elongating the word "man". The letter "e" at the end isn't spoken, but is used to differentiate the slang word and pronunciation "man" from the standard English word and pronunciation "man".

The words "mayne" and "menh" may also be pronounced the same way as noted above. However, the word "manes" or "manze" is probably pronounced "mans", sometimes meaning "one man" and sometimes meaning "more than one man". When the words "mans" (or "manse" or "manze") is used by African Americans, I believe it is usually done incorrectly on purpose as a way of mimicing what some non-Black people think is the way some African Americans talk. "Mans", "manse" and "manze" are used instead of using the correct standard English words "man" or "men". 

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM VARIOUS DISCUSSION THREADS
These comments are numbered for referencing purposes only.

Excerpt #1
From: I'm A Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm7gVvUuZkE&ab_channel=organizedblues
organized blues, Nov 15, 2008 

"Muddy, Bo, and Little Walter

Some Good Blues"

1. Tee Cee, 2010
"I'm a MAYNE!  Lovin' this ish!"

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2. Tommy Lee, 2011
"IM A MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN"

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3. E. Will, 2011
"5 people definitely aint natural born manes"
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This comment refers to the number of people at the time that comment was written who had clicked the "dislike" icon for this video.

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4. amd77j, 2013
"This is what YouTube is all about. Right here. "I'm a mane.....a full grown mane". Yessir, THIS IS IT!!!!"

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Excerpt #2 [sound file summary statement]
 Bo Diddley - I'm A Man (live 1959)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWWj8UzqRpE&ab_channel=TerryLDaniels
TerryLDaniels, Uploaded on Dec 23, 2010

Live at Cornell University. Bo really embraces the "mayygn" pronunciation here and stops singing after two verses, filling the rest of the performance with atonal slides and "mumbles" in addition to standard blues licks.
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The short discussion thread for this sound file doesn't include any comments about how Bo Diddley pronounced the word "man"

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Excerpt #3
Bo Diddley - I Am A Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaC5ZKRjLUM&ab_channel=John1948TwoA2
John1948TwoA2, Jan 28, 2011

Pancocojams Editor's Note:
The discussion thread for this sound file includes a lot of comments that compared Bo Diddley's pronunciation of the word "man" with the pronunciation for the name for "Maine" (a New England state in the United States). Here are a few of those comments:

iron grip 455, 2013
"this is great it makes me feel like a Maine like a real Maine"

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J C, 2015
"M-A-N, MAINE"

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RossBayCult, 2018
"Best song about Maine ever."

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Reply
faty Mix, 2020
"I’m a Maine!"

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Reply
Oldies Guy, 2020
"Maine that's crazy!"

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Rip Sean Taylor, 2019
"4-3-19 . I'm a Maine . M A N"

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Felipe Lago, 2020

"I spell M-A-N....

MAINE"

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Pancocojams Editor's Note:
Here are two other comments from that discussion thread about how Bo Diddley pronounced the word "man":

satine dali, 2018
"Mane"

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Chris, 2019
"Man, main, mayne, mane."

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Excerpt #4
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYti8CIiOak&ab_channel=Choock5219 "Bo Diddley - I'm A Man - 1955", published by Choock5219  on Jul 10, 2014

Samuele Tozzi, 2019
"I [profanity deleted] love his pronunciation of "Man", it's just too cool!"

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Reply
Cooler Chanakya, 2021
"i am a Mayn"

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Excerpt #5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5IOou6qN1o&ab_channel=GtrWorkShp
Muddy Waters plays "Manish Boy", published by GtrWorkshop, Nov 16, 2007

1. Michael Morgan, 2016
"MAIN"

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Reply
2. Kiwanis Hinton, 2016
"LOL but TRU"

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Reply
3. Mike C, 2018
"It's southern dialogue! Check out lil boosie and few other southern rap artists."

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Reply
4. Tea Jay
"A full grown MAIN.....🤣"

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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.

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