Marianne in Grants Pass, Oregon, first heard skookum after moving from Texas to Sitka, Alaska. The adjective, now chiefly heard in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, comes from Chinook Jargon, a contact language drawing on Chinook, Nootka, English, French, and other languages. Skookum originally meant a ghost, demon, or spirit and later came to mean strong, good, muscular, or powerful, as in a skookum Malamute or a skookum drink. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Skookum” Means Strong, Good, or Powerful in the Pacific Northwest”
We got an email from Marianne Jones in Grants Pass, Oregon, who says that she lived in Sitka, Alaska for 12 years. And when she first moved there from Texas, she heard people using an unfamiliar word, and that word was skookum.
Oh, nice.
S-K-O-O-K-U-M.
Do you know this word, Grant?
I do know it, but only because there’s a very weird subreddit that I come across.
Yes.
No, what?
A skookum subreddit?
Yes, a very odd.
Of course you do.
It’s just people post the oddest stuff there.
I can’t quite make out what it is.
I come across it when I’m browsing just the whole all subreddit, everything.
She says it’s usually used to describe someone or something who’s strong or muscular, like that malamute is really skookum.
Oh, nice.
And it’s a term that’s chiefly heard in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
And it comes from Chinook jargon, that mix of Chinook and Nootka in English and French and other languages.
Originally, it meant a ghost or demon or spirit, but it also became an adjective that meant strong or good or powerful, like you have a skookum drink.
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