The Dozens - Origins

Origins

The first academic treatment of the Dozens was made in 1939 by Yale-based psychologist and social theorist John Dollard, who described the importance of the game among African-American males, and how it is generally played. Dollard's description is considered pioneering and accurate. The Dozens is a "pattern of interactive insult" evident in low-, middle-, and upper-class African Americans, among males and females, children and adults. Usually two participants engage in banter, but always in front of others, who instigate the participants to continue the game by making the insults worse. Frequently used topics among players who "play the Dozens" or are "put in the Dozens" are one's opponent's lack of intelligence, ugliness, alleged homosexuality, alleged incest, cowardice, poor hygiene, and exaggerations of physical defects, such as crossed eyes.

Dollard originally wrote that he was unaware of how the term "Dozens" developed, although he suggested a popular twelve-part rhyme may have been the reason for its name. He only speculated on how the game itself grew to such prominence. Other authors following Dollard have added their theories. Author John Leland describes an etymology, writing that the term is a modern survival of an English verb—"to dozen"—dating back at least to the fourteenth century and meaning "to stun, stupefy, daze" or "to make insensible, torpid, powerless". Amuzie Chimezie, writing in the Journal of Black Studies in 1976, connects the Dozens to a Nigerian game called Ikocha Nkocha, literally translated as "making disparaging remarks". This form of the game is played by children and adolescents, and it takes place in the evening, in the presence of parents and siblings. Commentary among the Igbo is more restrained: remarks about family members are rare, and are based more in fanciful imaginings than participants' actual traits. In contrast, the game in Ghana, which is also commonly played in the evenings, insults are frequently directed at family members. Author and professor Mona Lisa Saloy posits a different theory, stating in African American Oral Traditions in Louisiana that "The dozens has its origins in the slave trade of New Orleans where deformed slaves—generally slaves punished with dismemberment for disobedience—were grouped in lots of a 'cheap dozen' for sale to slave owners. For a Black to be sold as part of the 'dozens' was the lowest blow possible."