crunk

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:31 PM -0500 2/12/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Earlier this year, I heard it defined as a portmanteau of "crazy
>drunk." That strikes me as unlikely, invented way after the fact.
>
>-Wilson

"Crunk" was probably the most popular selection on my students' "New
English Word Journals" the first time I ran that assignment in my
Structure and History of English Words course, in 2003 (even though a
google or Nexis hunt would have disabused them of its purported
novelty.  About half of them claimed it was a portmanteau/blend of
"crazy" + "drunk".   (Didn't we have a thread on "crunk" back around
then, concluding this was poppycock?)

LH

>
>On 2/12/08, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>  Subject:      crunk
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  If you don't know what "crunk" means, you gotta be over thirty or
>>at least closin' in!
>>
>>    Here's an interesting historical quote that may or may not mean
>>squat.. I found it on a scrawled slip of paper I was about to ditch:
>>
>>    1994 Conan O'Brien on _Showbiz Today_ (CNN-TV) (Apr. 4):  Use
>>our new swear word "crunk" !   It's so new that no one knows how
>>vile and filthy it really is!
>>
>>    Go for it.
>>
>>    JL
>>
>>
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>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
>
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