Eggcorn Forum

Skank is a delectable word. Lovely mouthfeel. I like to say it. Skank, skank, skank.

Not that I have much opportunity to use the word in conversation, mind you. “Skank” is an insult. A skank, says the dictionary, is someone who is sleazy, promiscuous, slutty. Usually the reference is to a woman, but if you type “Woody Allen” and “skank” into a Google search box you’ll find that not all of the ghits are references are to characters in his movies. Tsk, tsk. Such a delightful sound married to such degraded semantics.

The origin of the word “skank” is unknown. The first OED citation for the word is 1964. By the 1970s the word was being used for a reggae dance move.

I see on the net some evidence for a confusion between “skank” and “skunk.” It may be a flounder eggcorn, with the eggcorn and its acorn linked by the notion of disagreeable odor.

Examples of the confusion:

Post on a news item in US Magazine: She sells herself as sexy so she has to do anything to look it. Problem is, everyone (except the brangelunatics) knows she’s a skunk and no one except the idiots are buying her ploys.” (http://www.usmagazine.com/afternoon_delights_34?page=2)

Forum entry on Paul McCartney’s ex: “She’s a skunk” (http://www.baltimoresun2.com/talk/showt … ?p=3138512)

Comment in forum on Courtney Love: “As a person, she’s a skunk….” (http://www.thenoiseboard.com/index.php? … try3317805)

Bulletin board for users of sexual services: “I went to see Deb for a relaxation massage. She posts her adds in the Calgary classifieds on the net. Place filthy, she’s a skunk and awful massage.” (http://www.internationalsexguide.info/f … ge=2&pp=15)

Post to a gossip column: “She’s the girl at the bar in the VIP room who is just waiting for Mickey Rourke or some famous player to notice her. She’s a cheap skunk who has zero credibility or brains. ” (http://www.ronfineman.com/L030606.asp)

Flounder eggcorns are hard to prove. None of the above examples place the eggcornicity of “skunk” beyond question. In each case the person could have been using the word “skunk” as a pejorative without any influence from “skank.” But I think I detect the skank insult in these examples.

There may be an idiomatized use of skank. In the 1980s and 1990s the phrase “marketing skanks” started making the rounds. Apparently marketing specialists are perceived to be sleazier than most business types. Douglas Adams, you may recall, had great fun with this perception in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation was the target of some of his best lines (The opinionated Hitchhiker’s Guide describes the marketing division of the Sirius Corporation as “a mindless bunch of jerks who will be up against the wall when the revolution comes.” A version of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that “had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future” defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as “a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.”). The web now has more ughits for “marketing skunks” than for “marketing skanks.” This change in an idiom is good evidence that “skank” is being eggcorned.

Last edited by kem (2008-07-22 14:01:37)