|
Modern usage of the term
1. The noun punk these days often refers to a miscreant or subversive. 2. In prison slang, punk retains its urban street culture meaning and refers to a male who
is treated as a sexual submissive. 3. A "punk" is also a small piece of kindling used for lighting slow-igniting substances. It
is also sometimes a small stub of a cigar. This meaning is derived from the oldest uses
of the term.
Terms derived from the word punk
Punk rock, named in reference to the above term, is a largely
musical movement that arose in the late 1970s and reached its peak in the early 1980s. Etymology of the term is suspect, but it likely derives from the customers of the first
venue for such music, CBGB's in the Bowery in New York City, who were
alledgedly male prostitutes. The music was therefore 'rock for punks.'
See also: punk fashion, cyberpunk
External links: Open Directory: Punk Rock
Original meanings
The original meaning of punk is combustible material such as rotten, mouldy faggots of firewood or wood with Polyporus fungus growing on it. Alternative names:
spunk, punkwood, funky stuff, amadou. The punkwood is dried or charred and used in a flint and steel fire. It may be used as tinder or char. When put into an already blazing fire, especially if not completely dried, this kind of
material may cause explosive "popping" or "fizzing" sounds (See also: fireworks).
In Shakespearean slang
punke is used as a word for a prostitute, interchangeable with the
word "croshabell". For instance in "Merrie conceited Jests." by George Peele (undated but probably published in
1620) one of the jests is called "How George gulled a Punke, otherwise called a
Croshabell."
This meaning (prostitute) remains in use to the 18th century. In the early Restoration (1672), Samuel Butler begins Hudibras by saying that the English Civil War
had:
". . . made them fight, like mad or drunk
For Dame Religion, as for punk,
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore." (Canto I, lines 4-7)
It is a meaning that has never entirely disappeared, though it has, in the 20th century, developed a specialized context.
Local meanings in Somerset
In the English county of Somerset there are two traditional uses of the term "punk" (in local dialect): Firstly there is "Hunky Punk" meaning a stone carving
of an ugly face on the walls of buildings, a variant of Gargoyle and secondly there
is "Punkie Night" a local Somerset variation of Halloween.
External links: Punkie Night on National
Geographic's '"Pulse of the Planet"' ,
-
This is a disambiguation page; that is, one
that points to other pages that might otherwise have the same name. If you followed a link here, you might want to go back and
fix that link to point to the appropriate specific page.
|