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Rachel Kingston <Kingston@spirit.com.au> wrote:
> meant then had to sit down and have a "serious talk" to the wayward teenager,
> about the "actual meaning" of this word. Thinking it would shock them,
> regarding the true meaning, and the said teenager would stop using the word
Actually, originally the word meant "a strong smell or stink" (OED has
quotes using it this way from the 1600s. Defintely related to tobacco smoke
- in fact, the word was probably derived from a french dialect word meaning
"to give off smoke". (There's another earlier word "funk" meaning "spark";
_possibily_ related.) I know also from studying 1920s slang that at that time
it meant "smelling like sweat". The original connection to music was related
to this: earthy, real.
I'm inclined to believe that any sexual connotations (other than related to
smells, and that'd be an application of the word, not an inherent meaning)
are more urban legend than something in actual use. Certainly not the "real"
or "original" meaning of the word.
[Followup to .off-topic.debate]
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Language slipping?
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| (...) has (...) Ok at the risk of instigating a long thread on a topic that nobody probably wants to continue with, I always thought it was the male not female to which this word referred to???(to put it delicately) This is rather an old fashioned (...) (25 years ago, 26-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)
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