Skinned, skanned, skunned: What happened to your knees?
Today’s Yorkism comes courtesy of Pat Azriel of the York County Community Foundation.
A little while back, she wrote me a note and said, “I love reading about all the Yorkisms as I am from New York state.” She mentioned our use of awhile when doing things, and our habit of dropping the “to be” part of our verbs – you know, like “needs washed.”
But the main point of her letter? She says, “The latest I wanted to share with you happened a few weeks ago when someone was talking about how her son had hurt his knee while skateboarding; she used the word ‘skunned.’ When I asked about the word, she looked at me funny, and another person chimed in, ‘Yeah, you know, skinned, skanned, skunned.’ Not sure that there really is a ‘skanned’ but either way, ‘skunned’ is just bizarre!”
Indeed! I can honestly say that was a new one to me, too. Has anyone else heard that?
YES! My family and I say skunned all the time. We learned the word from my Mom and she learned it from her Mom. My Nana was from England so we always assumed that’s where skunned originated.