At 8:06:07 PM on Saturday, January 19, 2008, Rick
McCallister wrote:
> skag is more common in the Midwest from my experience. I
> heard it all the time as a kid. Skank is extremely common
> in the South --e.g. "She a cash-money skank ho'!" I
> suppose they probably come from the same root --maybe
> related to "shank" i.e. "leg", but that's a guess. Perhaps
> there's a Scots form like that
The OED, in a 6/2003 entry, says that the etymology of
<skank> is unknown. For what it's worth, its earliest
citation is from 1964:
K. HANSON Rebels in Streets i. 8 Hanky and Pinky whom the
boys called 'skanks', plain, promiscuous -- prostitutes
without pay.
An 11/2002 addition s.v. <scag>:
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. [...]
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'.
Brian