Feeling Punk

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Tom Christo. I’m in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Well, great. Welcome to the show, Tom. How can we help you?

My grandmother was born in 1899, and she used this term when she wasn’t feeling very well. Not really sick, but just kind of, you know, not quite right. She said, I’m feeling punk. And I thought, well, okay. And once in a while she’d say, I’m feeling kind of punk. I’m not really sure which the correct way to use it was. And then one time when I was feeling bad, I said to my mother, oh, I’m feeling kind of punky. And she’s like, no, that’s not really the way you use that word. You’re either feeling punk or kind of punk. I’m like, okay, there’s rules for this apparently. And here you are feeling not well.

Right, exactly. So, yeah, I just kind of wondered what the origin of that was, and if you had heard it before. You know, I know that punk is kind of like a low-grade hoodlum or something, and I’m pretty sure my grandmother wasn’t feeling like that. And there was also this stuff we had when we were kids to light firecrackers, this little kind of compressed wood stick that would smolder, and you would just keep a little red bit on the end to light firecrackers and stuff. But I don’t think that’s what she meant either.

And you call that a punk?

Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah, they used to give them to you free when you bought firecrackers. But that one actually is connected to the punk that you’re talking about, and I’ll tell you how. Because there’s another punk that you didn’t mention, which is old rotted wood. And so the punk that you use to light fireworks is similar to that because it catches fire very easily. And that old rotted wood, punk is an adjective, not punky, like your mother said. Mothers are always right. It became kind of a generic term meaning bad or inferior or second rate. And then it was a little more specialized and started to refer to being unwell or out of sorts or sick or kind of queasy or nauseated, that sort of thing. And that’s kind of the progression of that punk adjective.

Okay.

Yeah, cool, right? And it’s got at least 100 years on it. There’s a fellow by the name of George A.D., A-D-E, who wrote a book in 1896 where he uses the kind of second-rate version of the word. And he’s well-known as a slangster. He had a great ear for it and worked into all of his stories. But I would bet that it’s older than that. But 100 years is not bad for a term like this. But nobody really uses it that way anymore. I mean, I never hear it.

No, it pops up in Stephen King novels. He always has a great ear for dialect and unusual expressions that make sense in context and he doesn’t have to explain very much. But no, outside of literary uses, it’s not that common anymore. That’s what we’ve got, Tom. By the way, you’re keeping good company if you’re still using that punk as an adjective. Hemingway used it in letters. Sinclair Lewis used it in his novels. Stephen King, of course. William Volman, who’s much more recent, writes these giant, complicated books. Maybe there’s some grandmas and grandpas out there saying it, but mostly it’s gone.

Yeah, well, I never use it in everyday speech myself.

Yeah, you’d be misunderstood, wouldn’t you?

I would, yeah. I think people would just look at me like, oh, he’s kind of crazy.

Well, you might be that, but not for the use of punk. Tom, thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for calling.

Oh, well, sure.

Well, thank you guys. Take care now.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, we know out your way, they say things that strangers think are weird. Call us. We’ll talk about it. We’ll make you feel better. 877-929-9673.