"YOWZA...is just fine, MY NIGGA!"

TIME Magazine (October 8 page 8) announced that the "OFFICIAL SCRABBLE PLAYERS DICTIONARY" has ok'd some new "legal words.

One of them is OK. It's now OK to use OK. It's also finally all right to use "zen," and also "judgy" (a coy way of saying you're judgmental). You can get away with "frowny" too (adjective for somebody who doesn't smile much). You can toss an E atop a W and tell the world "EW" is a real word, a cry of disgust. EW!

You can also slap your tiles down and spell...YOWZA.

Really? Nobody knows the origin of YOWZA? That it's a racist imitation of how slaves in the South said "Yes sir?"

When da massa said DO something, the reply was "Yassir" or "yeah suh" or "YOWZA." Or even "YOWZA, BOSS."

Ignorance is such bliss. Because of utter ignorance, even the most agitated of Black leaders isn't objecting to "YOWZA." How bizarre is that?

You'd think there would at least be some debate over it, like the use of "NIGGA," which some insist is perfectly fine. Even President Obama grinned when ex-Comedy Central host Larry Wilmore cheered at a correspondents dinner, "You did it, My Nigga!"

Hell, that was spin doctored into a great moment in history, and an example of BLACK PRIDE, y'all:

Well, yes, we're all proud that a black man became President, so we're also willing to forget about his white mother.

We can also forget about "YOWZA" being, at best, a cherished example of how COLORFUL the coloreds were to white people. Except nobody is showing Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer," and anyone in blackface for Halloween will lose their job, if they have one.

I did a quick check of the Internet to see what the leading dictionary sites had to say about YOWZA, and it turned out, very little. My own paperback "Dictionary of American Slang" and "Slang and Euphemism" paperbacks didn't have it at all.

OK, the Internet is not known for literacy. Millennials are now more important than even ISIS or RED CHINA, and what they care about or DON'T care about really MATTERS. If there are any old black people who recall "YOWZA" with distaste, well, they're old. Irrelevant. "YOWZA" is fun to say. It's not restricted, like 'NIGGA,' which Bill Maher can't say, or any other white guy, even if he gave a million bucks to Obama's campaign.

How many out there have heard "YOWZA" cheerfully exclaimed as if it was just some 20's slang word like "Hotcha?" I think the last time the word was notably used in a film was "They Shoot Horses Don't They," when the mc played by Gig Young, kept shouting it like Ben Bernie. Ben Bernie was a famous bandleader in the 20's. He would often say "Yowzah, chil'en..." which was NEGRO DIALECT. Another bandleader, Harry Richman, was using the more conventional "Yes SIR!" to show enthusiasm. My father told me how Richman would say it all the time, with enough of a lisp that it sounded more like "Yeth THAH!"

So, is there ANY reference ANYWHERE that pointedly tells us that "YOWZA" or "YOWSA" is as bad as "SHO NUFF" and other phrases denoting the ignorance or subservience of Blacks during the days when Amos and Andy were popular radio stars? Well, if you forage around in the library you're sure to find a few books that will tell you about it. And...well, well, what have we here?

I have a record on the Cadet label from the late great Shel Silverstein. The track is called "YOWZAH." More a recitation than a song, it goes like this:

As we know from the WASHINGTON REDSKINS, and the bewildering re-spelling of "NIGGER" as "NIGGA," and how people "reclaim" bad words and "own" them ("BITCH" is awfully popular with some liberated women, referring to THEMSELVES), words can be flexible. Put letters together and they can form just about anything in a Scrabble game, ok?

OK is OK. And now, for the ignorant, so is YOWZAH.