Skank vs. Scag

[Zeldar]

It's fast becoming obvious to me that words and phrases that were familiar to me in the 50's and 60's are fading into the oblivion of fogyism. C'est la vie, as Chuck Berry might say.

However, I'm just curious if any old farts over, say, 45, can attest to the fact that in the day a woman of questionable quality was referred to as a scag instead of the more recent skank.

Other competing terms of the same sort are welcome here. Just trying to decide if anybody else can back me up on this.

[Khadaji]

48 here. I have only heard the word Skank.

[freckafree]

Zeldar, I am an old fart over 45, and I'm backing you up. My husband and I used to be highly amused whenever we drove past Skagg's Beauty Salon.

[cjepson]

Yes, that term was in use in my youth (1960s, southern New England).

[Zeldar]

Wheeeee! Thanks, old farts, for making my day!

Now. What drove me to this thread was the thread on "tickling" and how we used to call "aggressive tickling" by the term "goosing." I see in Urban Dictionary that "goosing" is way more nasty and evil than just mean tickling. And I now know better than to call something goosing unless it is.

But can you SCAG people confirm the old use of "goosing"?

BTW: I know that scag or skag also refers to heroin or other hard dope. (I wonder which usage came first!)

[Chefguy]

As I recall, a scag was a very unattractive girl, not necessarily one of ill repute. Of course, we picked up the term from adults, who probably meant it in a different way than we did.

Goosing was something my parents did to each other. It seemed to involve groping the other's buttcrack somewhere near the taint, eliciting a startled yelp from the other party.

[Zeldar]

As I recall, a scag was a very unattractive girl, not necessarily one of ill repute. Of course, we picked up the term from adults, who probably meant it in a different way than we did.

Goosing was something my parents did to each other. It seemed to involve groping the other's buttcrack somewhere near the taint, eliciting a startled yelp from the other party.

Yeah, that is the Urban Dictionary version that's least disgusting!

I'm about to conclude that the "goosing" in my memory is either very regional (Alabama) or maybe just what folks in my family called it.

As for the scags in school, the attractiveness factor was all it took. They could be virgins (ought to be by our standards) and still be scags.

[VunderBob]

Fogey of 49 weighing in, Indiana vernacular.

Back in the day (8th grade), scag was used with the same connotation of skank now. I recall hearing skank back then and thought it was something my sister made up.

Present day usage, in North Carolina: skank is a woman undesirable for reasons of looks and/or hygeine; scag is a female hardcore drug addict.

I've always known 'goose' to be a vigorous pinch to the buttcheek.

[Shark]

40ish, and also familiar with the term skag. For us it was also more of a term to describe looks than reputation.

I've always known a goose to be a pinch to the buttcrack area. It's got to be unexpected and they have to jump if done properly.

[D18]

47, raised in rural Ontario. Skank was common. Never heard of skag. Alternative was a "hose". Not to be confused with a "hoser", of course.

I always thought the sine qua non of goosing was a protruded thumb.

[BigBertha]

I wonder what it is about the sk sound. Maybe it has to do with skunk..

[elmwood]

However, I'm just curious if any old farts over, say, 45, can attest to the fact that in the day a woman of questionable quality was referred to as a scag instead of the more recent skank.

44. Hard both skank and skag in my youth. There seemed o be a subtle difference; a skag was worse than a skank. You could clean up a skank and make her presentable, where it would be much more difficult with a "ridden hard and put away wet" skag.

[Zeldar]

I wonder what it is about the sk sound. Maybe it has to do with skunk..

Could be!

Skeedaddle
Ski
Skull
Sculpture (as close to pleasant as I can think of offhand)

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

As I recall, a scag was a very unattractive girl, not necessarily one of ill repute. My recollection as well, southeastern US. I was familiar with the term "goose," but I often heard it rendered as "gooch."

[cwthree]

Yes, that term was in use in my youth (1960s, southern New England).

Same here, but 1970's, northern New Jersey.

[Zeldar]

As I recall, a scag was a very unattractive girl, not necessarily one of ill repute. My recollection as well, southeastern US. I was familiar with the term "goose," but I often heard it rendered as "gooch."

I had a strong feeling I could count on you for a little bit of support. I can't swear that it wasn't "gooch" in my case either, since I never saw it in print! :D

I seemed to equate scag with pig, which was more for looks than hygiene habits. We even had a code phrase to substitute for the word scag: "that girl eats corn."

[BigBertha]

Has anyone ever heard rack?

[Zeldar]

Has anyone ever heard rack?

Other than the term for the primary focus for a man's eyes?

[Chopper9760]

However, I'm just curious if any old farts over, say, 45, can attest to the fact that in the day a woman of questionable quality was referred to as a scag instead of the more recent skank.

44. Hard both skank and skag in my youth. There seemed o be a subtle difference; a skag was worse than a skank. You could clean up a skank and make her presentable, where it would be much more difficult with a "ridden hard and put away wet" skag.

Well put! 25, Idaho. Skag is definitely out of favor in these parts but still recognized as the same as but a few degrees worse than a skank. Skag also implies that the person is older, as you said, worn-out.

[freckafree]

I've always known a goose to be a pinch to the buttcrack area. It's got to be unexpected and they have to jump if done properly.

This. My mother often described what I would call the "deer-in-the-headlights look" as somebody looking like "they'd been goosed and hadn't jumped yet."

[Hilarity N. Suze]

I am over 40, way over 40. In my day "scag" meant junk, horse, heroin...I've forgotten all the names. It could also be conveniently applied to any other illegal drug that was shot up or snorted, not smoked, but my understanding was that properly, it meant heroin. A scaggy-looking person was someone who looked like she used, and rented herself out. I supposed it could have been shortened to scag.

[ftg]

In the universe of my high school days (but the terms were dying out):

Skank: Loose, unappealing woman. Not generally a nice person. Likely to be mildly evil.

Scag: Extremely evil, nasty woman. Will do bad things (including physical violence) just because. Not necessarily a loose woman. Scags enjoy getting into no-holds-barred fights.

[elmwood]

As I recall, a scag was a very unattractive girl, not necessarily one of ill repute. My recollection as well, southeastern US. I was familiar with the term "goose," but I often heard it rendered as "gooch."

A gooch is a taint, at least where I'm from.

[Manwich]

In Australia (I was born in 1980) I always heard the word "scrag" not "scag". Note the added "r". It meant pretty much the same as "skank", although "scrag" I think has nastier connotations, suggesting an truly unpleasant person even deep down, while "skank" refer to superficial qualities and a general lack of class and taste. No person with a brain uses theses words after the age of 15 or so, by the way.

So despite the added "r" it seems to fit with what American posters have said about "scag" and "skank".

Can any posters from the UK comment on how "scrubber" and "slapper" relate to these terms?

[sunstone]

Born in 1943, youngsters! In my day, both terms were used in SoCal. Skank was an girl of (hopefully) questionable virtue, while a scag was an unattractive female whose virtue was unquestionable, being nonexistent.

You might admit to knowing a skank, but never a skag.

Skanks smoked, and skags shot up....at least in our teenage minds.

[LouisB]

I am over 40, way over 40. In my day "scag" meant junk, horse, heroin...I've forgotten all the names. It could also be conveniently applied to any other illegal drug that was shot up or snorted, not smoked, but my understanding was that properly, it meant heroin. A scaggy-looking person was someone who looked like she used, and rented herself out. I supposed it could have been shortened to scag. Way over 40, me. Heroin = scag or skag.

Skank = undesirable female, often hygienically challenged.

[Diver]

1940 here and in my day in TX scags were ugly women that were often butt-sprung.

[AskNott]

I was born in 1949, and live in Indiana. I learned, well past high school, that scag, or skag, meant heroin. I never heard it to mean a person. I first heard skank in reference to Christina Aguillera. I used to think I was hip, but I know better.

[samclem]

66 here. Grew up in Northern Virginia 1947-1966, and Ohio 1971-2010. A skag, growing up, was an unattractive woman. Never heard skank until I moved to Ohio, probably around the 1980s.

The OED has this to say about the terms--
U.S. slang.


scag. Also skag.

1. A cigarette; a cigarette stub.

1915 Dialect Notes IV. 235 Scag, cigarette stub. 1928 Amer. Speech III. 454 Skag, a cigarette; to smoke. 1936 Nat. Geogr. Mag. LXIX. 778/2 A cigarette is a ‘skag’ (and cadets may not smoke in public).
2. Heroin.

1967 ‘G. BAGBY’ Corpse Candle (1968) ix. 121 Acid, grass, skag? 1973 E. BULLINS Theme is Blackness 152 Most of the guys that we usta swing with are gone, man. In jail, on wine or scag. Ibid. 157 This scag they been sellin' me lately makes me hear funny. 1976 R. CONDON Whisper of Axe I. iv. 18 Addicts, prostitutes, skag merchants..the amoral and the lost. 1977 N. ADAM Triplehip Cracksman xiii. 138 I'm no junkie myself, never touched the scag, never even used the White Dragon Pearl.

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DRAFT ADDITIONS NOVEMBER 2002

scag, n.
derogatory.

a. U.S. (orig. in African-American usage). An unattractive woman.

1938 Amer. Speech 13 316/2 Slang among Nebraska negroes... A young woman of none too pleasing appearance is a skag or a hag. 1961 St. Mary's Collegian(St. Mary's College, Calif.) 10 Nov. 6/2 Being a member of a fraternity at the University of California I feel..hurt that the label ‘skag’ was used to denote our parties. I suggest you drop by one of these parties and get the real facts on them. The girls aren't beauties by any means, but we fell [sic] that it's our duty. 1979 R. S. PEFFER Watermen 117 Ain't seen so many skag women in a year. Goin' to make stayin' home seem sweet. 1992 E. A. PROULX Postcards V. li. 285 They were the worst-looking bunch of skags Loyal had seen. 1998 ‘M. MANSON’ & N. STRAUSS Marilyn Manson xvi. 261 And I shamefully spent the night talking to the skag who tried to masturbate me.
b. Brit. regional (midl. and Sc.). A poor, scruffy person. rare.

1939 F. THOMPSON Lark Rise 238 They yelled: Old Hardwick skags! Come..to pick up rags To mend their mothers' pudding-bags. 2000 Times Educ. Suppl. (Nexis) 28 Apr. (Scotl. Plus) 2 In Bathgate the other schoolkids are calling our boys ‘smelly skags’.

And, about skank...
A person (esp. a woman) regarded as unattractive, sleazy, sexually promiscuous, or immoral.

1964 K. HANSON Rebels in Streets i. 8 Hanky and Pinky whom the boys called ‘skanks’, plain, promiscuousprostitutes without pay. 1972 J. JACOBS & W. CASEY Grease 12 One of those skanks we've seen around since kindergarten? 1986 Playboy May 116/1 Girl M.B.A.s could slip into gabardine suits and floppy bow ties and feel, if not exactly alluring, at least not like total skanks. 1992 Spy (N.Y.) Nov. 59 (heading) A startling glimpse into Woody Allen's sex-with-teenagers-obsessed-pastand proof that actual teenage girls think he's a skank. 1994 J. FAVREAU Swingers (film script, third draft) 7 Some skank who isn't half the woman my girlfriend is. 2002 Village Voice (N.Y.) (Electronic ed.) 8 Jan., Such is the desperate state of American film culturedominated by studio goat dung, controlled by marketing skanks.

[BigT]

I've definitely heard of goosing being used for other than the butt pinch. Aggressive tickling is a good way to describe it, I guess, but you also have to catch the person completely offguard, and the duration is quite short. It was often used to start play fights amongst boys.

And I'm only 25.

[davidm]

Old fart here. I've only heard "skank". Maybe it's regional?

[missred]

47, grew up in Indiana.

In my youth, we used scag much like skank is used now: trashy woman of questionable reputation. Scags tended to wear inappropriate clothing for the setting, smoked, cursed in conversation with everyone and had no qualms about starting a catfight. They tended to take up with boys from the wild side. Most of the scags in my high school dropped out to have kids by our junior year.

[bluezooky]

I am over 40, way over 40. In my day "scag" meant junk, horse, heroin...I've forgotten all the names. It could also be conveniently applied to any other illegal drug that was shot up or snorted, not smoked, but my understanding was that properly, it meant heroin. A scaggy-looking person was someone who looked like she used, and rented herself out. I supposed it could have been shortened to scag. Way over 40, me. Heroin = scag or skag.

Skank = undesirable female, often hygienically challenged.

Yes scaggy, a person not necessarily a drug addict but looks it, you don't want to touch a scaggy person, I have the opposite take on skanky I say someone openly sexual a person you want to be with.