Superman is now a verb

As an English teacher, I have always been a stickler for proper grammar usage. Every couple years or so, a new word emerges that breaks the rules in terms of parts of speech. We've got a new one now: "Superman" or "Superman-ing".

Before I get to the word and its usage, let me provide some background. The criminal trial that's been, er, engrossing, the public in Minneapolis has been the sexual assault trial of former University of Minnesota cornerback Dominic Jones. The former Gophers' captain was arrested more than a year ago and charged with assaulting a 18-y-o girl who was passed out. I'm not going to say that Jones is outright guilty -- I don't think I know enough of the facts to make that claim -- but I can say this: Jones and his buddies who were there are some of the dumbest a@##%! that I've ever heard of. While the four of them were finishing their, um, handiwork on the lady, one of the buddies in the room filmed the scene on their webphone. After the girl came forward to police and arrests were made, it was mentioned that the incident was caught on one of their phones for posterity. When the owner of the phone was told that the phone's hard drive could be restored and the video could be brought from the recycle bin -- he was apoplectic.

I won't go into everything the trial has uncovered thus far -- although I will give a shout-out to my old collegiate newspaper, The Minnesota Daily, for destroying the big dailies in terms of their coverage. Suffice to say it involved vodka shots, pornographic videos and other salacious details. But the video portion is something else.

The court was privy to the 16 second clip, both at actual speed and then slowed to a slide at a time. It showed Jones on top of the woman, whose eyes are clearly shut and is non-responsive. While the video doesn't show Jones inside the woman, it does show him "finishing" his act upon the girl's face. This is where we get to my original dissertation on grammar. Superman, which I previously believed to be a noun describing a guy in red and blue tights who could scale a building in a single bound, has a secondary meaning in the world of porn and hip hop. Jones' actions are an example of "Superman". Apparently some people like to do this and there others in the world (even outside the world of adult films) that appreciate having it done. Perhaps there is some value-add for the skin, I don't know.

As the tape was rolling, there was off-camera dialog that was captured as well. I wasn't sure if it was Jones or one of the other men in the room who said "Brown on brown is how we get down!" implying that the apparently passed-out woman was African-American. I was talking to some friend of mine last night and discussed whether the firestorm over this incident would have been even worse if the supposed victim had been a white girl, from say Edina or Minnetonka. My guess is that it would have been. That's not much solace for the alleged victim and her family, I understand.

On a final note, the defense's big witness Robert McField from Missouri, who was kicked off the Gophers team before this incident and is currently serving time in prison for robbery, was on the stand Friday testifying against Jones. McField's mother and another family member were there in their best Sunday outfits, sitting in the front row of the courtroom, smiling and proudly waving to the younger McField as he described his role in the supposed crime.