Home Β» Segments Β» Janky, a Fifty-Year Slang Summary

Janky, a Fifty-Year Slang Summary

Melanie from San Antonio, Texas, uses the term janky to mean “not good ” or “not working well,” and in her family, they’ll jokingly use the term dejankify and dejankification to refer to washing their dog. The slang term janky in one spelling or another has been around since the late 1960s (although we didn’t take it that far back during this segment). Also spelled jinky, jinkie, and jankey, it’s probably based on the word junky and influenced by skanky and stanky, a jocular way of saying stinky. This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Smarmy, A Winner of a Word?

According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...

Saying Oh for Zero

Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...

Recent posts