Alan in Columbia, South Carolina, says his family used the terms go juking and juking around to refer to hanging out with family and friends, moving around aimlessly, with no particular goal in mind. It’s related to the term juke, also spelled jook...
The boiled rice dish known as congee does congeal when cooled to make a kind of porridge, but those two words aren’t related. Congeal is related to French congelé, the past participle of French congeler, “to freeze.” Congeal and...
A jook joint is a roadside establishment where all sorts of drinking, dancing, and gambling may occur. Zora Neale Hurston described them in her 1934 essay “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” and the term probably derives from a West...
