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When Wiz posted a picture of his son Sebastian waiting for the bus to school on his first day of kindergarten, the father of one had his hand up for a high five and was looking super proud. Wiz even made a point to note that Sebastian “RODE THE BUS AND ERE THANG!” But, it didn’t take long for commenters to chime in with remarks about how the rapper has too much money to let his kid ride the bus.

I saw it from this article. I looked it up. 'Ere' is 'before' and 'thang' is a slang word for 'thing'. Put it together, and it's 'before thing'. It doesn't seem to make any sense.

So, what does ERE THANG truly mean?

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You're taking the writing literally. The writer is spelling the word how he pronounces it. In so-called standard spelling and speech, the word is everything. However, he pronounces it as *ere thang. I would say this due to his use of African-American Vernacular English. The usage of and everything is not unique to AAVE. It is also apparent in so-called standard English. But it's informal.

and everything
phrase [cl PHRASE]
You say 'and everything' after mentioning a particular thing or list of things to indicate that they are only examples and that other things are also involved.
[informal]
He had a bed and a fireplace and everything. We become friends and everything, and we call each other on the phone all the time.
(Collins Dictionary)

He was pictured with his son waiting for the bus. The tweet read:

❤️1ST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN❤️RODE THE BUS AND ERE THANG‼️😝

He is saying that his son rode the bus, among other things. He is suggesting that his son got the complete experience of the first day of kindergarten.

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  • Is it common to write according to pronunciations in English?
    – dan
    Commented Sep 1, 2018 at 11:12
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    That's a hard question to answer. Briefly, in formal writing, we don't write how we pronounce. In informal writing, like text messages or tweets, it is common to misspell words on purpose to match how we speak. There are also other reasons for misspellings, but that's a broader, philosophical issue that's beyond my understanding. Uneducated people will often misspell words because they don't know how to properly spell them or because they want to spell how they pronounce the words. Misspelling words like that will look uneducated, even if it's done on purpose or by an educated person.
    – Em.
    Commented Sep 2, 2018 at 3:03
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It is my belief, based on my experiences with speakers dropping many word sounds when they speak, that ERE THANG is a dictation of the word everything as it is pronounced by some English speakers.

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