Banjaxed

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Maeve and I’m calling from San Diego.

Maeve?

Yes, Maeve.

Well, welcome, Maeve. How are you?

Thank you. I’m doing very well.

What’s up?

So I’m calling today about a word that actually occurred to me because of a word that I’d heard talked about on your show.

So on your show, you had previously talked about the word janky.

And from that, I thought of a word that I’d heard of in Ireland, which has a very similar meaning, which is banjax.

Banjaxt.

Banjaxt, yeah.

And how I would spell it is B-A-N-J-A-X-E-D, Banjaxt.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, that’s how most of the dictionaries have it.

They do.

So we were talking about janky meaning?

Meaning something that doesn’t work as it was designed to.

Well, it’s a little different than that.

Janky usually just means inferior, bad, or weird.

So it kind of could encompass something that’s broken or malfunctioning.

Banjax tends to mean busted or intentionally broken or ruined, right?

Like you can banjax your knee or you can banjax a window or banjax a party by ruining a party.

Well, in terms of how I heard it used in Ireland, like an old car that was very near to breaking down would be called a banjax car.

Or if you hurt a body part, that body part would be banjaxed.

But it’s not necessarily something that was done by intent.

I see. There we go. Yeah.

As far as banjacks being the origin of janky, there’s a big, big gap of decades there.

Oh, OK.

Janky doesn’t really start to show up until the early 90s in the United States.

And there’s the problem of banjacks not really being an Americanism.

People might know it here.

I’ve never heard it.

Yeah, I bet fewer than one in a hundred people in the United States would know that term.

Okay.

And they would probably be expat Brits like you.

Okay.

Are there different forms of it as well?

I’m going to banjax your knee if you aren’t nice to me?

I suppose I have heard it used in that sense, but it’s normally used in the past tense when some damage has already happened.

Something’s messed up.

Yeah.

I see.

You were raised in Ireland?

Yes, correct.

Which part?

In Dublin, and I’ve been here in San Diego for about 10 years now.

Okay, so long enough that you know us Americans in our evil ways, but short enough that you still kept your accent.

Sure, sure.

But you don’t keep saying banjax, right, because people just look at you funny?

Not too often, no.

I mean, I try to curb the amount of Irish phrases that I use.

I think that makes you interesting.

I do, too.

But we’re language people, so maybe that’s – I want the full force of your foreignism to come out when I’m talking to you.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I hope we’ve helped some, Maeve.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Super duper.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for calling.

Bye.

Banjaxed.

I love that.

B-A-N-J-A-X.

That is indeed the way that it’s spelled.

It’s almost always more often than not used in the kind of adjective form as banjaxed.

So something can be banjaxed.

-huh.

I like it.

Ruined or broken or screwed.

I mean, if we can use that on…

If Barack Obama can say it on five national television networks, we can say it on public radio.

Banjax is not a bad synonym for screwed or screwed up.

I like it.

If you’ve got a question about a foreignism or something that you learned when you were a child that nobody seems to say anymore, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or pop us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Thank you.