Brewer talks to a Penn linguistics Ph.D candidate who explains that the move from “jawn” to mean a cool thing (as in “That’s the Joint”) to mean anything is called semantic bleaching. Calling something “the joint” means it’s something you like, something that you connect with, and a slight tweak of that to “my joint” means that it’s something that you cheerfully embrace as yours. Like a person, place or a thing.” “It’s a thing.” “It’s a Philly thing.” 
 
 
 
 Anything can be a “jawn.” In her breakdown of the term, Brewer exclaims at one point, “You can even eat a jawn.” 
 
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 Of course, we can’t just leave it at that. And it was right around then that Philadelphians started saying “jawn.” 
 
 The word “joint” has been modified more than once; in Washington, DC, there’s a version that sounds more like “jont” or “jahnt,” and in Memphis, there’s one that’s somewhere between “jaint” and “jeent.” But in Philadelphia, the change from “joint” to “jawn” followed a few pretty standard AAVE rules. The station promoted it throughout the evening: As part of Nicole Brewer‘s new Good Question series, she explored the existential question that’s been bothering all Philadelphians for centuries: “What is jawn?” 
 
 The report went on pretty early in the broadcast, which started late because the Grammys went over.
– If you've ever spent much time in Philadelphia, you've probably heard the word "jawn." But what does it mean? Local news station CBS 3 asked just that in February, and Atlas Obscura digs even deeper with local linguist Taylor Jones to get to the bottom of the "enduring mystery." Turns out that part of what makes the word so tricky to explain, and thus replicate elsewhere, is its nebulous nature—because "jawn" appears to be unlike any other word in any language, and is a stand-in for pretty much any noun, even abstract ones. As Atlas Obscura puts it, "It is a completely acceptable statement in Philadelphia to ask someone to 'remember to bring that jawn to the jawn.'" But its incredible flexibility means it's not always used in a flattering way. Think "side jawn," or a person someone is, ahem, seeing on the side. Unfortunately for many native Philadelphians, the closest word linguists have found in the evolution of "jawn" appears to be "joint," which has its roots in New York when Bronx hip hop group Funky Four Plus One released hit single "That’s The Joint" in 1981. "Sigh," laments the blog Philebrity. "Can't we just have one thing that is truly our own? Besides cheesesteaks and shame that is." Philadelphia magazine, meanwhile, notes that the word made an "extended appearance" in Creed last year, and that it's far from dead: "I base this on anecdotal evidence, but it's pretty strong: All of my girlfriend's students at a middle school in Chester use it frequently." Still confused? So are the commenters on this Jezebel thread, one of whom asks: "So it’s like 'smurf'? I've smurfed the smurf into the smurf and now the smurf is smurfing and crying on the floor. But with jawn. Something like that?" (Have you heard how Norwegians use the word "Texas"?)