Where did the phrase "my bad" come from?

Answer 1

Good question! I didnt know the answer so I looked on the internet and found this:

The best evidence obtainable at present points to Manute Bol, the 7'7" Sudanese NBA player whose native tongue was Dinka, as the inventor, sometime in the 1980s, of this now–ubiquitous phrase.

Geoffrey K. Pullum told the story in his December 7, 2005 blog post:

Here is the relevant portion:
Ken Arneson emailed me to say that he heard the phrase was first used by the Sudanese immigrant basketball player Manute Bol, believed to have been a native speaker of Dinka (a very interesting and thoroughly un-Indo-Europeanlike language of the Nilo-Saharan superfamily).

Says Arneson, "I first heard the phrase here in the Bay Area when Bol joined the Golden State Warriors in 1988, when several Warriors players started using the phrase."

And Ben Zimmer's rummaging in the newspaper files down in the basement of Language Log Plaza produced a couple of early 1989 quotes that confirm this convincingly:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1989: When he [Manute Bol] throws a bad pass, he'll say, "My bad" instead of "My fault," and now all the other players say the same thing.

USA Today, Jan. 27, 1989: After making a bad pass, instead of saying "my fault," Manute Bol says, "my bad." Now all the other Warriors say it too.

So all of this is compatible with a date of origin for the phrase in the early 1980s (Manute Bol first joined the NBA in 1985 but came to the USA before that, around 1980).

Professor Ron McClamrock of the Philosophy Department at SUNY Albany tells me he recalls very definitely hearing the phrase on the basketball court when he was in graduate school at MIT in the early 1980s, so the news stories above could be picking the story up rather late; but it is still just possible that Manute Bol was the originator, because he played for Cleveland State and Bridgeport University in the early 1980s, and his neologism just could have spread from there to other schools in the northeast, such as MIT.

Answer 2

The first time I heard this phrase was on Rock Star - INXS about two years ago when the guy who eventually won the show, J.D. Fortune, screwed up the lyrics. When it was pointed out to him, he said "My Bad". I hated the phrase then, and I cringe to hear it now.

Answer 3

It's gibberish nonetheless and you would do well to avoid using it in everyday speech. Gentleman will think you are simple and will not desire your company. The end result of which will be that you will die alone, a barren, childless bar matron, with no one but drunkards and toothless beggars to mourn your passing.

Answer 4

http://www.bookofjoe.com/2006/02/the_origin_of_m.html

Answer 5

I guess someone was like "that's pretty bad" and they're like "yeah, thats my bad"

Answer 6

someone with bad grammar and people thought it was cool to say things grammatically incorrect.

Answer 7

I have read that it is a truncation of "my, I'm so bad."

Answer 8

I guess someone thought it would be cool to say.

Answer 9

I have never heard of it

Answer 10

misspelling of my dad.