More on "punk"

[Wilson Gray]

On Jun 14, 2005, at 6:11 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: More on "punk"
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> Luckily for us the historicity of MSL doesn't matter.  Its date is all
> that counts.
>
> "Spunk" is not only still current in Britain; it now has some U.S.
> currency as well.  In a certain genre of, um, literature, anyway.
>
> Howzabout we drop the commas and coin the term "um literature," with
> the stress on "um" ?
>
> JL

You have my vote, Jon.

-Wilson

>
> Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: More on "punk"
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> On Jun 14, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Laurence Horn
>> Subject: Re: More on "punk"
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>> At 12:17 PM -0700 6/14/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>> "Punk" is another one of those homosexual words that originally
>>> referred to women.
>>>
>>> JL
>>
>> specifically = 'harlot' (so Farmer & Henley), e.g in Measure for
>> Measure (v.i):
>>
>> She may be a punk, for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.
>>
>> Similarly Johnson, Chapman, Congreve, etc.
>>
>> Larry
>
> "Punk" is used as a word for "prostitute" in the book, "My Secret
> Life," by "Walter." In an earlier discussion of "punk," I have a vague
> memory of someone suggesting or stating that "My Secret Life" is, in
> some sense, not real. FWIW, Harvard owns one partial and one complete
> copy of the original, actual, published-in-The-Netherlands version of
> this work. Of course, the comment may have been that MSL is fiction and
> not autobiography. That is certainly a possibility and I have no
> opinion on that.
>
> BTW, in Britspeak, does "spunk" still mean "semen"?
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>>
>>> James Smith wrote:
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>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: James Smith
>>> Subject: More on "punk"
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -
>>> ---------
>>>
>>> “Cell Survivor, A former inmate breaks down the myths
>>> and realities of prison life”
>>> by John Bowers.
>>>
>>> Salt Lake City Weekly, April 28, 2005
>>>
>>> There are two words every convict immediately learns
>>> to remove from his vocabulary: “Punk” and “Bitch.”
>>> However cute or funny they sound rolling off the lips
>>> of a favorite comic or movie star, calling someone
>>> your homosexual slave is an instant declaration of war
>>> and invitation to a fight, your beating or your own
>>> murder. These two terms are not used in the same way
>>> as they are in the free world. It can be elementary
>>> school name-calling on a deadly level.
>>>
>>>
>>> (NOTE from J Smith: it wasn't clear in the SL Weekly
>>> if this was an original piece for SL Weekly or picked
>>> up from another source.)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything
>>> South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued
>>> jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively
>>> |or slowly and cautiously.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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