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The Enduring Mystery of ‘Jawn,’ Philadelphia’s All-Purpose Noun (2016)
- PaulAJ 7y agoHow does the meaning of "jawn" differ from "thing"?
- smitty1e 7y agoA 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.
- anvandare 7y agoSo it's a smurf used when you don't smurfin' know the proper smurf? Smurfy. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Smurfing https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Smurfing
- thom 7y agoAre 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.
- smitty1e 7y agoOne would not grow irate and tell someone else to 'jawn off'.
- kdmccormick 7y agoPlaces and people, it seems.
- elliekelly 7y agoIt 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.”
- thom 7y agoI 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.
- rubyfan 7y agoThat 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”.
- aswanson 7y agoYeah, it's basically a lazy-evaluated type monad that can return another function or object.
- TheRealSteel 7y ago...What about the word "thing", some variation of which is used 20 times in the article, but never acknowledged?
- rukuu001 7y agoCan 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.
- harperlee 7y agoHueón 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.
- sergioj97 7y agoI'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 :)
- bencollier49 7y agoI don't buy this: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oojamaflip https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oojamaf... https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/thingamabob https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/thingam...
- WalterSear 7y agoNeither of those work as a plural. However, 'shit' does.
- mtts 7y agoNot 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”.
- duckqlz 7y agoI 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.
- jhoechtl 7y agoPhonetically for a german the word schtroumpf has a striking similarity to the german word Strumpf which means stocking
- mtts 7y agoExactly, 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.
- jvanloov 7y agoFlemish: "dinges"/"dingske"
- efdee 7y agoIt'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.
- empath75 7y agoIts 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.”
- misterjonx 7y agoYes! I’m from the dc area too and my friends made heavy use of “jonx”.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y agoInteresting. 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.
- pge 7y agoDC 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
- cat199 7y ago+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.
- Kaotique 7y agoPretty 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.
- shortlived 7y agoFurther reading with better linguistic coverage: http://languagehat.com/jawn/ http://languagehat.com/jawn/
- jihadjihad 7y agoHow is this "further reading"? This is just blog spam that links to the original article and only has three sentences of its own.
- shortlived 7y agoYou 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.
- spodek 7y ago> 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.
- markkanof 7y agoAlso, at least among my peers in the Philly area, jimmies were the brown/chocolate ones, sprinkles were the multicolored ones.
- benburton 7y agoWhoa whoa whoa... I thought jimmies were the "long" ones and sprinkles were the smaller, circular ones.
- xntrk 7y agoI 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/water-ice-phillys-classic-summer-cooler-gets-hot-across-the-country https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/10/489217423/wa... the wikipedia seems to imply they are they same.
- dfxm12 7y agoThere'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.
- Sean1708 7y agoAnd 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_ice
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- aamargulies 7y agoMarklar https://southpark.cc.com/clips/151539/welcome-to-marklar https://southpark.cc.com/clips/151539/welcome-to-marklar
- rubyfan 7y agoBack in the late 90s I had a roommate from Philly and used “jawn” almost every sentence. His excuse was “I’m from Philly yo”
- scandox 7y agoYoke 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.
- injb 7y agoThat's what I thought of when I read the article.
- auto 7y agoQuite 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.
- furyofantares 7y agoI’d think “thang” would be a bit closer than “thing”, given your examples plus the ones in the article
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- burke 7y agoI still don't feel like this is more than 5% different from a combination of "thing" and "shit" in colloquial Canadianese.
- gerbilly 7y agoThe 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-pidgin https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/da-kine-hawaiian-pidgi... on the subject of 'da kine.'
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y agoA 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 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kine%20bud
- bitwize 7y agoSpeaking 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.
- ncmncm 7y agoI 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.
- dx87 7y agoI 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.
- war1025 7y agoMy 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.
- steveklabnik 7y ago"warsh" is sometimes heard in Pittsburghese.
- war1025 7y agoWe're from Iowa though... Obviously picked it up somewhere, but no idea who from.
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y agoInteresting 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.
- schnable 7y agoIt definitely jumped the shark and is now fetishized by white millennials.
- dfxm12 7y agoAfter Creed came out, it has become part of the English lexicon, more or less. Kinda like what Rocky did for "yo".
- moron4hire 7y agoI 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.
- fintler 7y agoAs someone who grew up in the area, I mostly recall it being used in the late 90s, then not really that often afterwards.
- novacole 7y agoI’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.
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- msmedes 7y agoI 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!"
- peterwwillis 7y agoBaltimore has the gender-neutral pronoun "yo": https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893/yo-said-what https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893... https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article-abstract/82/3/262/5458/A-NEW-GENDER-NEUTRAL-PRONOUN-IN-BALTIMORE-MARYLAND https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article-abstract...
- hmschreck 7y agoSomehow, in Memphis, we ended up with "junt" in a very similar use.
- josephv 7y agoThey say this junt "jawn" is unique like anyone cares.
- timerol 7y agoAt 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".
- javierga 7y agoThis 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.
- tyingq 7y agoNot 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".
- LargeWu 7y agoMy 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"
- ssully 7y agoMy 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.
- habosa 7y agoThe 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_English
- turc1656 7y agoThis was actually much more interesting than I thought it would be. And well-researched.
- nchlswu 7y agoa lot of people mentioning "thing," and it's simply not used that way. That said, "ting" of Jamaican Patois origin would be appropriate.
- ncmncm 7y agoIn Hawaii they say Da Kine. It's a brand name now.
- southphillyman 7y agoAnother 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
- samirillian 7y agoSuper-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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtmpW6qI-KU
- anonu 7y agoReminds me of Pittsburghese. Yinz know what I'm talkin' about?