[color=brown]Did the word "funky" originate in Black
English?
Youre in a late night jazz club. The band is good. Through a haze
of cigarette smoke (well, some of it is probably tobacco), the
saxophonist soulfully wails.
Funky!
Funky entered English in the 17th century and meant smelly. It
probably came from funkier, French for puffing smoke on someone.
Later it also came to mean a state of panic, possibly from a
similar Flemish word, though it may be related to
the smell of fear. Eventually it also meant feeling down, as in a
blue funk.
It only gained common usage in Black English 80 years ago, meaning
sweaty and smelly. But just as bad came to mean good in the
African-American community, funky, too, by the late 1930s, had its
meaning mirrored as something earthy, basic and pleasing!
