Page 21 - 2010 - AOUT

let’s consider the terminology: steam =power; that’s fairly easy.

Punk, though…. Sex Pistols?
Safety pins? Sid Vicious….?
Malcolm McLaren? Perhaps
we should go further back in
time. The original meaning in
the late 16th century was
prostitute! Shakespeare uses
the wonderful term “taffeta
punk” in “All’s Well That Ends
Well” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
Whilst in “Measure for
Measure” we have “My lord,
she may be a punk; for many
of them are neither maid,
widow, nor wife.” Some other
uses by the bard are best
dealt with elsewhere—we do
have younger readers!

Later it was used in American English among the early settlers to refer
to a kind of burnt corn and in the Delaware Indian language it means
ashes. Perhaps unsurprisingly it became slang for a cigarette in the
late nineteenth century before becoming a derogatory term for a low‐
life/hoodlum/waster. And then in the late 80s it hit the music and
fashion scene.

So with such a chequered
history it seems that punk
has joined with steam to
describe a strange and
eclectic art form which has
p e r m e a t e d f a s h i o n ,
architecture and design via
literature.

The actual term is thought
to have been first used in a
letter written to Locus
magazine in 1987.

Artisans In Miniature 21