Hacker News Reader

Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

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.”

View on HN

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.

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

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

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”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com