Image via Huffington Post TV

Okay, can anyone tell this writer when people started saying/using “my bad” for “my mistake”?

I keep seeing it pop up in emails, heard it used in a current TV ad for Allstate…so wondering if the origins are the hyper-abbreviation of today’s communicators or some other verbal hybrid? Did Kutch use it to tell his followers he was breaking it off with Demi and then it just became universally embraced?

In my mind, “my bad” is the perfect descriptive preface for… hair day…breath…luck…dog Ernie.

After all, if I’ve made a mistake, I want to own up to it. Usually, I’ll defuse it with an “Oops, my mistake.” Or, more likely “Sorry, my mistake.”

Curiosity has now got the better of me, so I’ve gone to Wikipedia. “My bad” is an American idiom that was made popular by Manute Bol (had to look him up on Google to find he was that leggy 7’6″ Sudanese hoopster for the NBA since deceased at age 47) and gained popularity with urban streetball players. Yet, say the wikiwonks, it was used in the 1995 film Clueless. Really? Moreover, there apparently was an episode entitled “My Bad” on both Scrubs and Dexter. Talk about being clueless…who knew?

And that’s MY GOOD etymological lesson for the day…