The Enduring Mystery of ‘Jawn,’ Philadelphia’s All-Purpose Noun (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The Enduring Mystery of ‘Jawn,’ Philadelphia’s All-Purpose Noun (2016)

atlasobscura.com

Quite a few people in the comments are asking why you couldn't just use the word "thing", I'll try my best to explain.

I grew up in northeastern PA, but my dad lived on the outskirts of Philly, and I went to school not far from the city, with a large population of Philly natives, so I got a decent amount of exposure to jawn usage from different walks of life.

Jawn has a few different uses, but I feel most often it was meant to blend plural and singular explanations of things, or to encapsulate the generalization of a topic. It can replace "thing" or "stuff" or "shit" (when shit is used like "that's my shit"). But it isn't just about replacement, as I've heard the phrase "that shit's my jawn", or "all that jawn stuff". It almost can be used as a replacement, or a doubling/accent of any word in a sentence, as long as you know what you're doing.

For instance, if someone was at your house and saw you had soft pretzels, they might say "Let me get some of that pretzel jawn". They didn't really ask for one pretzel, but you would know that's what they wanted, or they want at least one. Another common usage was if someone was talking about something they didn't know a ton of details of. I studied Math and Comp Sci at school, and if I was studying and a friend who knew nothing about it came over, they might see me working and say "You all caught up in your computer jawn?". Not sure how ubiquitous this usage is, but we also used to digress into nearly nonsensical usages, and say stuff like "What's all this jawn jawn", which somehow was understood as emphasizing your disapproval, or lack of understanding of whatever the subjecting of the jawn-ing was.

I don't know if I'm doing it justice, and it isn't until I really tried to flesh out my understanding of a word that I realized how difficult it could be, but maybe that helps someone understand.

I’d think “thang” would be a bit closer than “thing”, given your examples plus the ones in the article

I still don't feel like this is more than 5% different from a combination of "thing" and "shit" in colloquial Canadianese.

Ditto from Kentucky.

Interesting linguistics but as someone who spent a few years living in Philly I think the use of "jawn" is a little overstated here. I lived in both black and white working class areas, as well as gentrified/young professional areas such as nolibs and (to a lesser extent) fishtown.

You know who says "jawn" the most? The kids of the upper middle class who grew up in ardmore/wynnwood/bala cynwyd/merion/etc. and moved to the city and now employ working class affectations to prove their authenticity.

As a black Philadelphian I have to disagree. I use Jawn all the time (in non professional all settings). And so does every other black person I know. Most of the black people I know are working class and they from my estimation use Jawn the most.

Now to proper usages. It’s true you can use Jawn as a replacement for “thing”. However, you can also you it (as bad as it sounds) for women. So a common phase is “Did you get the Jawn from the Jawn?” Meaning “did you get the thing from the woman?” Or “The Jawn told me to come up to the Jawn down the street” meaning “the woman told me to go to the place down the street”. Succinctly Jawn is a person, place, thing or woman. There is no way you can overstate the usage of Jawn. I’ve used it and heard it my entire life from almost everyone I know.

Zero usage that I remember having grown up very close to a suburb but still in the city. I literally would not even know how to pronounce this 'jawn'. I do remember 'jit' and until a few years ago was not even aware that it's not apparently used elsewhere.

Don't think this is even remotely true. Native Philadelphians, of all races, have been using jawn pretty heavily since at least the early/mid 90s. I'd be interested in which working class neighborhoods you lived in, nolibs/fishtown kind of suggests you may have been surrounded by a lot of other transplants. edit: There is a generational aspect to it as my parents and grandparents never said it. 80s/90s babies for sure. Maybe the people you encountered were relatively young (or old)

It definitely jumped the shark and is now fetishized by white millennials.

Which, negative implications aside, is objectively a legitimate evolution of language, right?

What's a non-legitimate evolution of language?

Good question. I think if you declared that instead of saying "red", we now all said "butterfinger", it's not that it would be illegitimate, but if it didn't gain any momentum you'd be hard pressed to say that it was part of the language. However, the appropriation of jawn (which is implied to be working class vernacular) by white hipsters or whatever the original comment said could cause some consternation, but if it catches on, than I'd argue it's now just part of the language (what I called 'legitimate' in my original post).

Congratulations, Sir or Madam, you've just created a meme. Caught butterfinger-handed.

After Creed came out, it has become part of the English lexicon, more or less. Kinda like what Rocky did for "yo".

I’ve been using Jawn since I was a child in the early 90s. I remember my grandfather who was born in the 30s using it.

yep -- first time I heard it was on Dj Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's "I'm All That" circa 1991. "...set my sights on making a record that people thought was a hype jawn." I was living in New England at the time and all the middle school kids [including me] started saying it shortly thereafter.

We generally assumed it was a synonym for "joint" [as described in the linked article] in the sense of "unit of work," e.g. "A Spike Lee Joint"

[p.s. for the record, "Homebase" is an outstanding LP that still sounds great today]

I moved to Philly in 2008. It was around 2010 that my white, suburban friends started using "jawn" and acting like they had always been using it. By the time I left in 2012, I had not heard any other types of people else use it.

As someone who grew up in the area, I mostly recall it being used in the late 90s, then not really that often afterwards.

Black millennials too

I live in Kensington and don't hear it much at all up there from either UMC or working class folks, both white and black (+ Latino + Asian for that matter). I've heard it 100% from black folks in West Philly (can't tell socioeconomic if UMC or working class though). I haven't heard it much from UMC white folks but I don't spent a lot of time with them so might just be sample bias.

Go to Rhawnhurst. People won't stop saying it. Oddly enough, it's rare to hear in Mayfair or Tacony.

> Interesting linguistics but as someone who spent a few years living in Philly I think the use of "jawn" is a little overstated here.

This is like a Canadian who says he doesn't say "eh". Eh.

NB: This is meant to be light-hearted based on experience.

to prove their authenticity.

Ironically, it makes them stand out as obviously being from out of town.

Trying to proves one's authenticity is generally a great way to come across as being inauthentic.

Yeah this is not at all correct.

This comment nails it. I lived in Kensington and never heard it. In early adulthood, I lived with upper/middle-class whites from the outskirts of Philadelphia and heard it regularly. This is an affection adopted by those on the periphery to signal they are not on the periphery.

I grew up in South Jersey, spent most of my life there, and I've never heard of "jawn". I don't doubt that it exists, but it certainly seems overstated. I've spent some time in Philly proper, Manayunk, working class neighborhoods, college neighborhoods, and with large groups of Philly transplants in New York. Maybe it was said around me and just got lost in conversation, but I have no recollection of it at all, so I wonder how ubiquitous it really is.

I grew up near Millville / Vineland in South Jersey in the 90s and the kids on my soccer team (we're talking from the age of like 13 up to 18) would say "jawn" at least 100 times a day. Never heard it from adults though.

The word 'da kine' in Hawaiian pidgin is similar.

The thing with da kine is that it is never used to refer to something one is not sure about.

When someone says to you: "Why didn't you come to Queens with us yesterday, the waves were da kine!", they mean the waves were the kind of waves that I know you like.

The author of the article above also wrote: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/da-kine-hawaiian-pidgi... on the subject of 'da kine.'

Speaking of waves, the article also mentions modern usage of "awesome" meaning great or cool rather than terrifying. The crossover of meanings was in surfer culture, where terrifying was great. Surfers sought waves that were awesome (meaning terrifying), radical (meaning severe), or even tubular (meaning they curled over so hard they nearly formed a tube on the water) because those were the most fun to ride. I like that despite sounding silly (especially since the 80s are long behind us), these terms have real meanings and histories.

Then again, maybe the connection goes deeper. There are plenty of languages that have words that once meant "terrifying" and now mean "superb"; compare English terrific and Japanese subarashii (whose original meaning was "causes you to shrink (with fright)"). Maybe we just instinctually simultaneously fear power and admire it, and that gets encoded into our speech. Christians are taught both that God is good, and that he should be feared.

A further use of "kine" that people may have experienced far away from surfer culture is "Kine Bud" which is usually shortened to KB.[1]

KB doesn't refer to any specific strain but is instead a bucket term. Bud that is Kine is essentially high grade marijuana without any seeds.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kine%20bud

I grew up in Hawaii.

"Da kine" was routinely used for objects, moods, foodstuffs, notions of any kind that the speaker was just too lazy or sophisticated to be bothered about thinking of the name of, or of saying out loud. It was a way of transferring responsibility for communication from the speaker to the listener. As such, using it also asserted authority, whether legitimate or (most commonly) just assumed.

I went to school in Philly and the moment that really crystalized both my understanding of the word jawn and the city as a whole was a truck driver screaming at a PPA agent trying to hand him a ticket: "This donk ain't my jawn yo!"

Its interesting that the article posits that it came from a song released in 1981 and then mentions that there was a recording in 1981 of someone already using the word in its current expansive way, and must have already started developing by the late 70s.

Growing up in the dc area, joint and junk were sort of merged together and there was a word kind of like jawnks. “That’s my jawnks.”

Not to be confused with the (I believe) DC/PG County verb "joan". To "joan on" someone was to tease them or "break balls".

I heard this all the time in the late 80's and early 90's but never really afterward. Not sure if they are at all related since the meaning and usage is so different.

The Philadelphia version of "joan" in the 80s/90s was "bust"....now it's "bid". Philadelphians no longer "bust on people" they "bid on people". It's really interesting how these things evolve. DC kids probably have an new entirely unrelated word that essentially means joan now

I lived in the boonies north of DC so by the time I heard DC/PG transplant kids using it, it was probably already old news.

We did say "bust on" a lot (more common than "joan on" where I grew up) and it stuck around longer. Even now, 25-30 years later, I wouldn't take note if someone said "bust on" someone--but the one time I heard someone my age say "joan on" recently, I gave her a grin and asked if she was from PG county. She was surprised to learn it wasn't common elsewhere.

edit: after looking into this just now, I guess it's still used farther south. Haven't heard it in the DC/MD area in years.

yeah this was still common in Atlanta about 10 years ago

Hah, was that only a PG county thing? I just assumed that was everywhere.

Interesting. Further south in Central Virginia, I've heard it used with a long A and called "janks," with that exact type of usage.

Of course, its adjective form has developed more and "janky" is arguably used as a more refined version of the word "junky" which is never heard.

Yeah I hear the use of (and have used) "jank" in this way

Get that janky jank out of my jank.

DC native here too - this may just reflect my age but it seems like jawnks was relatively short lived in the late 80s/early 90s (at least I haven’t heard it since then), ie a slang trend (not unlike the Greaseman-coined “dische” of the same era) rather than a long-lived linguistic change as it sounds like “jawn” is

+1 dc - left about 10 years ago, but definately jawn was used heavily. not a phillly jawn.

also, 1/3 of the way in and hasn't been mentioned, this was mostly african american thing from my observations. but, anyway.

Yes! I’m from the dc area too and my friends made heavy use of “jonx”.

Not at all uncommon. The dialect of Brussels has something similar: “schroumpf”. This word has become famous the world over, albeit in translation. You likely know it as “smurf”.

I was unaware the smurfs lived in Brussels. From Wikipedia:

> The word “smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French "schtroumpf", which, according to Peyo, is a word he invented during a meal with fellow cartoonist André Franquin when he could not remember the word salt.

Exactly, but from what I remember reading somewhere - but can’t of course now find a source for - it wasn’t so much that he invented the word but that he decided to use it for his comic characters. The word was in common use at the time - and, in fact, it was Franquin that used it on that occasion, not Peyo.

Phonetically for a german the word schtroumpf has a striking similarity to the german word Strumpf which means stocking

It's not as much a part of the Brussels dialect as it is from the Smurfs cartoon, which originated in Belgium. These smurfing smurfs smurf it a bit too smurf though.

Flemish: "dinges"/"dingske"

Another nuance of jawn is that it could mean anything....except when it involved gender.

Jawn when referring to a human specifically referred to a woman. "That jawn bad" means a woman is attractive. Currently the younger crowd has a phrase "That's a bad jawn" that means something unfortunate happened. Context is very important when jawn is used

This reminds me of Venezuelan’s use of `vaina` (literally a husk), an all-purpose catch word that I’ve seen used to supplant other words/concepts that you don’t have at the tip of your tongue. In my native Spain I see people use `historia` (history).

It’s not a substitute of shit, thing, and stuff, since it can be used alongside these words and you can bring the `vaina` to the `vaina`.

Maybe the weirdness of `jawn` is it's not a word on its own therefore it cannot cause confusion?

Non-Philly, non-US, non-native English speaker here, so please excuse me if I’m not getting the gist of the article.

Not recent, but perhaps words like doohickey, thingamajig, whatzit, ya-know, etc, are similar in American English. All substitutes for "concept/thing on the tip of my tongue that I can't recall the correct word for right now".

Can any Chilenos chime in on how close ‘hueón’ is to ‘jawn’?

In Chile I heard it used to mean a person or a thing, or whatever really.

I'm not Chilean but my girlfriend is, and I thought of that word instantly when I saw this.

Even though I'm not Chilean, I'm from Spain and I think I have a decent grasp on its meaning. It can be used to refer to any person or object. I only speak English and Spanish (fluently), but I've always assumed that there are similar words in any language. Terms with extremely open meanings (or terms that at least can be used that way).

Of course there are various differences. For example, I assume jawn can be used as a verb (to jawn). "Hueón" (or usually, "weón") can't be used as a verb by itself, but of course you have the verb "webear/huevear", that belongs to the same word family, with the same open meaning but for any action. I don't think, however, that this means "wueon" is less versatile than "jawn". I think it's just because in English it's common to have a noun and a verb that look very similar (a cut/ to cut, a mine/to mine) and in Spanish that's unusual.

As a side note, the word "huevo" means egg, and "huevón" can mean "big egg" or refer to someone who, well, has big balls (sometimes used as a mild insult like "dumb"). "Hueón", just as "wueón" or "webón", are all misspellings of "huevón". My own guess is that the term evolved from that original meaning into the wildcard it is today.

If any true Chileans show up, feel free to correct my words! And please ignore my obvious lack of linguistics knowledge, that was just my uneducated impression :)

Hueón is really written huevón, literally ballsy. In most of South America it is used in a vulgar registry to refer to someone. Initially it was derogatory (having big eggs can also refer to someone being overly cautious, as he walks slowly to “not tread on them”, or to be a sloth), but with extended use it has gradually lost meaning and is more generically used to call someone. Similar transition out of insult as motherfucker. Similar level of vulgarity registry.

...What about the word "thing", some variation of which is used 20 times in the article, but never acknowledged?

Pretty cool that it can be used in so many places. More than shit, thing or similar words.

It reminds of te Smurf language where they can use "smurf" and variants of it as a general name for a person, replace verbs and adjectives. The meaning is highly contextual.

Yoke is used pretty freely in Ireland and certainly can reference people, things or ideas. It doesn't handle verbs though. It's thing or thingie really but with flair.

That's what I thought of when I read the article.

I don't buy this:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oojamaf...

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/thingam...

Neither of those work as a plural. However, 'shit' does.

I grew up in Maryland, and my wife thinks it's funny that I say "wooder" and "jimmies". I always thought it was something I picked up from my grandmother since she was a pre-school teacher and tended to pick up pronunctions from her students. Another word that my wife thinks is funny is "woorsh" instead of wash.

My dad also pronounced wash as "warsh". And then orange was always "oinge". Don't have any idea where he picked it up because none of my other relatives pronounce them that way.

"warsh" is sometimes heard in Pittsburghese.

We're from Iowa though... Obviously picked it up somewhere, but no idea who from.

> an unusual lexicon that includes words such as “hoagie” and “jimmies” (a sub sandwich and sprinkles, respectively)

Also water ice, which the rest of the world calls Italian ice.

Jimmies is a common phrase in New England, so definitely not just a Philly thing

Living in Philly, I've always heard "sprinkles" except from people from New England; I'm not sure the writer put that one in the right geographic bucket.

At least in MA, jimmies are the chocolate ones, sprinkles are the multicolored ones. I've heard that that's not 100% uniform throughout New England, but can't confirm.

I did see another comment make the same statement about Philly, so I'm guessing it's also a Philly thing?

EDIT: Just saw you identified as a Philly person, so perhaps not :)

I thought they were actually slightly different things. Italian ice being much harder and water ice being softer. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/10/489217423/wa... the wikipedia seems to imply they are they same.

There's no legal or culinary definition for any of these. You can call it sorbet, granita, water ice, or probably one of many other local names and it'll have similar ingredients, but maybe a different ratio or texture. You can't even get Italians to agree on what a granita should be.

If that's what I think it is, the rest of the world (including Italy) calls it a Sorbet or Sherbet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbet

It's basically ice, fruit pulp and sugar, blended together.

It's as though the ratio and process of blending those ingredients together can't possibly produce a different result...

Sorbet, Sherbet, "Italian Ice" and "Water Ice" (as experienced in Philly) are not all the same thing.

Also, sherbet contains dairy, none of these others do.

The consistency is different. Nowadays Rita's has expanded to most states. Go there if you want to try one out.

italian ice in the US is sugary and artificial, definitely no real fruit involved

Also, at least among my peers in the Philly area, jimmies were the brown/chocolate ones, sprinkles were the multicolored ones.

Whoa whoa whoa... I thought jimmies were the "long" ones and sprinkles were the smaller, circular ones.

And for those of us that are neither from Philadelphia nor the rest of the world, it's apparently similar to a sorbet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_ice

Yep, and for those from Italy is granita (which is not a sorbet, it is - slightly - different):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granita

And it is commonly eaten (in Sicily) with a brioscia (which is also - slightly - different from the more known French brioche).

My exposure from the word was from listening to The Roots, a rap group from Philadelphia. I was able to use context clues to assume the word was mixed purpose, but didn't get confirmation until I searched for it years after hearing it.

On the more embarrassing side, it took me way longer then I would care to admit to understand that "Illadelph" was slang for the name of the city.

At the end of the article, it talks about "bag" being pronounced like "byaeg" or "beg", and "backpack" like "beckpeck". I'm surprised they didn't use the common example of "bagel", which is normally pronounced the same as "bay gull", but in Philly the first syllable is "beg".

The linguistics of Philadelphia and the surrounding area are some of the best-studied in the world since UPenn pioneered the academic study of sub-dialects of American English: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_English

Back in the late 90s I had a roommate from Philly and used “jawn” almost every sentence. His excuse was “I’m from Philly yo”

Super-producer Diplo was once one half of Hollertronix. He had a song called "Real Jawns"[1], the meaning of which remained a mystery for me until this article.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtmpW6qI-KU

My circle of friends has a similar word, but it's an all-purpose verb. The word is "blomp".

"Blomp some sour cream on that for me"

"I'm gonna blomp over to the store"

"...and then my kid blomped me right in the head with his toy"

Somehow, in Memphis, we ended up with "junt" in a very similar use.

They say this junt "jawn" is unique like anyone cares.

How does the meaning of "jawn" differ from "thing"?

A thing is going to be a noun.

A jawn is a possibly uninitialized variable thrown in at random anywhere, as far as I can jawn.

So it's a smurf used when you don't smurfin' know the proper smurf? Smurfy.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Smurfing

Yeah, it's basically a lazy-evaluated type monad that can return another function or object.

Are there any uses in the article where one couldn't just say thing, things or thingy? Half my sleep-deprived conversations with my wife are about thingying the thing so we can thingy the other thing.

One would not grow irate and tell someone else to 'jawn off'.

Places and people, it seems.

It is sometimes used for places and people but now that you mention it I can only really think of examples of it being used for slightly negative references. I would say there’s usually some contempt behind it.

Place: “I have to go to that DMV jawn and renew my license.”

People: “Them TSA jawn opened my bag.”

Person: “She’s my ex jawn.”

It can also be used to refer to women or a woman in a belittling way. Somewhat similar to “bitch.”

For example: “That jawn is clingy.” or “Them jawns be crazy.”

I call both places and people 'thingy', admittedly only when the actual words don't come immediately to mind. It's possible I'm more addled than the average English speaker though.

That made me lol but I’ve never heard it as anything other than a noun/pronoun.

You usually don’t replace a person with “thing”.

Marklar

https://southpark.cc.com/clips/151539/welcome-to-marklar

Baltimore has the gender-neutral pronoun "yo": https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893... https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article-abstract...

In Hawaii they say Da Kine. It's a brand name now.

This was actually much more interesting than I thought it would be. And well-researched.

Reminds me of Pittsburghese. Yinz know what I'm talkin' about?

a lot of people mentioning "thing," and it's simply not used that way. That said, "ting" of Jamaican Patois origin would be appropriate.

Further reading with better linguistic coverage: http://languagehat.com/jawn/

How is this "further reading"? This is just blog spam that links to the original article and only has three sentences of its own.

You are right. Language hat usually provides more context and fantastic discussion with their readers but not in this case. Sorry for not reading close enough.

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