@pimoore I have a weird relationship with that word. In my secondary school it was an article of faith that it meant sexually exhausted.
All nonsense, of course: it’s source is a word for being killed, as in “off to the knacker’s yard”. But a slight hint of rudeness persists on my brain.
@adders Exactly my experience.
With the added bonus of being a risqué sounding word that pushed the boundaries with my teachers without actually being punishable.
@billbennettnz @adders @pimoore I was scolded by a teacher during my first week in Secondary school for using the word; I just thought it meant tired and never knew why it was considered "foul language". She was a lovely Scottish woman, though firm and not willing to take any nonsense.
@SimonWoods I was in Scotland — I wondered if that was the common point; it was a Scottish assumption. But @billbennettnz has rather blown that out of the water…
@SimonWoods @billbennettnz @adders Wow, I had no idea this whole alternate background and take on the word existed. Admittedly it’s not commonly heard in North America, at least not for me anyway.
@pimoore There is a line in a John Cooper-Clarke poem from the late 1970s:
"Tires are knackered, knackers are tired."
Which probably doesn't mean much outside of the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
@JohnPhilpin I met him once when the two of us were alone on the top deck of a Manchester double decker bus sometime in the late 1970s. He was relatively unknown at the time and, in hindsight, was probably on his way to buy drugs.