Jinx

[Michael Quinion]

> Can anybody fill in the record or further justify some proposed
> etymology?

Take a look at my own attempt, at

  <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jin1.htm>.

I have been able to show, through a book and play of the early years
of the twentieth century, that the old song about Captain Jinks of
the Horse Marines which Barry Popik unearthed was still well known
just at the point at which it might have been taken up by baseball
players.

His suggestion is plausible, even though - as so often - key links in
the chain of evidence are missing. For example, it may well be that
the 1859 poem about the printer's devil named Jinks that he has since
found is no more than a coincidence.

Of course, it might also be that the name was chosen there, as it was
for the Captain Jinks song, because it already had associations with
bad luck or incompetence through a reference that we haven't (yet)
turned up. That would throw the provenance of the term back beyond
1859. It is also possible that the link is to the relatively rare
word "jynx" which dictionaries still give as the origin, thus
ultimately proving them right!

If you want to compare versions, Dave Wilton's is at

  <http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorj.htm#jinx>.


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>