crunk

[Grant Barrett]

The preferred spelling of the word by the Conan O'Brien crowd is
"krunk," at least judging by the crowd at alt.fan.conan-obrien and
similar newsgroups. Through February 1995 I find only 10 "crunks" in
association with his name in Google Groups. For the same period I find
248 "krunks." One of the earliest uses, for what it's worth, is
someone correcting "crunk" to "krunk":

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.conan-obrien/msg/172612612b4ef06a

I looked into the Conan connection in 2004 when I did an entry for
"crunk," though it probably needs revisiting. I found that "Krunk" is
a multipurpose curse word created by the Conan O'Brien writers. I
found no connection to "crunk" and did not put it in an editorial
note, but instead replied to comments about Conan. (This was when I
had yet to learn that the public will suggest any half-assed theory
each time you talk about the history of a word.)

http://dtww.org/index.php/dictionary/crunk/

Grant Barrett
Double-Tongued Dictionary
http://www.doubletongued.org/
editor at doubletongued.org

On Feb 12, 2008, at 20:17, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> 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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