5

My twins love Peppa Pig, and whenever it is possible I let them see the original English version. There's a rule of thumb that all "young" characters, except the piglets themselves, have a name which starts with the same letter as the name of the animal, from Suzy Sheep to Zoë Zebra). The one and only exception is the little brother of Kylie Kangaroo, whose name is... Joey.

A search with Google returns more that 30K results, so I was wondering if for an English-speaker (probably a British English speaker, or maybe an Australian English speaker) "Joey Kangaroo" means something specific. Does anybody know if this is the case?

Improve this question
7
  • 1
    Joey was 19th-century Australian slang, of uncertain origin, for a baby kangaroo, and has become the formal designation for the young of all marsupials.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Sep 13, 2013 at 12:40
  • I think joey - Australian. A young animal, especially a baby kangaroo is General Reference.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 13, 2013 at 14:57
  • 3
    @FumbleFingers Well, as far as the OP knows "Joey" is just a name. I wouldn't think to look for the definition of a name. I'd have googled "Joey Kangaroo" to see if the combination had any special meaning, as the OP thought. The wiki link that returns does have the answer, but you have to read a good chunk of the article to get there, (and I wouldn't expect to find the answer there, as the OP). Interestingly enough, I was going to make a point that you wouldn't search "define kylie" and learned it's Australian slang for a boomerang!
    – WendiKidd
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:26
  • @WendiKidd: Well, I just typed in define joey, and 4 of the first 6 matches give the relevant information without needing to actually follow up the links. Obviously OP wasn't aware of it, or he wouldn't be asking here. But I still think it's sufficiently well-known and easily-established that it's not a suitable question for ELL.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:35
  • 1
    @FumbleFingers: it did not occur to me to search just for Joey, and I never came across that word - for me it was just a name.
    – mau
    Sep 13, 2013 at 15:39

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8

The word joey is the terminology for a young Kangaroo. See http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/joey?q=joey and the last sentence of the Terminology section here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo

In addition to that, it is also used as a first name, for men and women. You can see that here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey and here http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Joey

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .