YONKS vs SHONKY

[Jacki]

In yesterday's ten letter game SHONKY was rare and YONKS was common. Both were classed as Australian, NZ, English slang.
I have to say that if you make one rare or common, they both should probably rate the same although I never tried YONKS.
Yes I've heard of it but I thought of SHONKY first and didn't even think of trying YONKS, on the strength that Shonky was rare.

[Dragonman]

I missed YONKS but played SHONKY
It features in Terry Pratchetts book Tosher, well worth a read.

[rogue_mother]

Can't say that I have heard of either word. I am reading my way, albeit a bit slowly, through Terry Pratchett's books. I am still fairly near the beginning of the Discworld series. having just finished Mort and Sourcery. Tosher isn't on my radar.

[Alan W]

(Yonks is also discussed here.)

Yonks seems fairly well-known in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc, but more or less unknown in North America, so it will be re-classified as rare.

The word is not all that old: it hasn't been around for yonks. The earliest citation, quoted in both the OED and Wiktionary, is from a Daily Mirror article in 1968, quoting singer Julie Driscoll as saying "I haven't heard from you for yonks..." Presumably the word had been in use in speech for a while before it first appeared in print.