Word Up - Shonky is Worse than Wonky

Ah, another day with the joy of learning and loving all things Kiwi.  Today's favorite headline in the NZ Herald is: "Fund touted to protect against shonky builders."  If that won't make an ignorant American read the article to find out what shonky might mean, I don't know what will.  Alas, the headline writer assumes we're hip to the meaning and the story doesn't actually use that word, so we take the gist of the story and gather it means what my grandmother might have called "not up to snuff."  (My grandmother's use of that foul tobacco product is perhaps the subject of another blog on another day.  Or not.  I'll just say "Ewwww" and let it go at that.)

Consulting an online dictionary, I find that shonky does, in fact, mean poor in quality, shoddy.  So far so good.  But where did this wonderful word come from?  It seems unlikely to have its derivation from the Latin, so I checked on its etymology, laughing to myself that I'm applying such a scientific word to the search for such a wacky-sounding word like shonky.

Wordnik.com tells me shonky has (0) etymology.  In other words, they don't know its origin.  That strikes me as unsurprising, but I press on.  Another source questions whether there is potential anti-Semitism in this word, used apparently by both Aussies and Kiwis to mean "of questionable quality."  Another source indicates that the word might have, in fact, come from Yiddish.  I could have gone on all day with the references, one to a show that ran in London last year called "Shinky Shonky" that was apparently a burlesque comedy act.  And there were even people with first or last name Shonky or a derivative, Shonkyta.  This is how one gets lost in Internet searches (and uncovers new and wonderful names to offer for the grandchildren we don't yet have).

Pulling myself back from the brink, I decided that Down Under slang will continue to be a source of fun for me, as well as those crazy headline writers.  And I've found yet another offbeat word to add to my vocabulary to amuse my future daughter-in-law who thinks my use of the word wonky is such an oddity.  Shonky is, though, something less appealing than wonky.  Wonky just means rickety, shaky or somehow twisted, awry.  Shonky goes decidedly downhill from there.  In searching, I did find one source that indicated shonky might actually be a merger of shoddy and wonky. 

Wherever it arose, I look forward to finding those times when shonky can flow from my mouth with pleasure.  Thanks, once again, to the NZ Herald for adding to my repertoire of words we don't hear every day.