Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

It is used here to mean "social gathering".

See this posting by Richard Fontana (Dec 16 2001):
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/26f30c0b74292972?hl=en

   One of the airplane passengers killed in the World Trade Center attacks
   on 11 September 2001 was David Angell, the producer of the television
   show _Frasier_.  Angell may have played a key role in history of the word
   'boink'.  
   
   The history of 'boink' = 'have sex with', which later also came to have
   the meaning 'social gathering of Usenet newsgroup participants' (and
   which we've had some AUE discussions about in the past),
   seems to be tied closely to television, and indeed I'm not sure the word
   has ever really been used without there being some consciousness of an
   association with television (in this I think it is different from the
   similar-sounding BrE word "bonk", which may well be the remote
   ancestor or at least kin of "boink").  In its entry for "boink" =
   "social gathering", the Jargon File mentions the shows _Soap_,
   _Cheers_ and _Moonlighting_ as claimed popularizers of the word; I myself
   associate it very closely with one or more episodes of _Moonlighting_ in
   1985, in the show's first season I think. _Cheers_ (1982-1993) both
   predated and outlived _Moonlighting_ (1985-1989); _Soap_
   was a much earlier show (1977-1981).  
   
   Searching in the expanded Usenet archives at Google, I found the earliest
   use of "boink" in the relevant sense was, in fact, in a discussion about
   _Moonlighting_:

    From: ste...@ism70.UUCP (ste...@ism70.UUCP)
    Subject: Re: ABC...Moonlighting
    Newsgroups: net.tv
    Date: 1985-09-12 05:43:00 PST
   
    Boink.  Boink.  Boink.  Boink.  Boink.  Boink.  Boink.  Boink.
   
   (This was the line used by Bruce Willis's character in the episode
   containing the first (only?) use of "boink" on _Moonlighting_.)
   
   But it seems likely now that _Cheers_ used it first, though not very long
   before. Les Charles, one of the creators of _Cheers_, said, in remarks
   delivered at the memorial service for David Angell (and his wife, who
   also died in the September 11th incident):  "And lest we forget, if he'd
   never done another thing in his career, David Angell would have earned
   immortality as the man who added the word boink to the English language."
   
   It looks like Angell worked as a writer for _Cheers_ mainly in 1983 and
   1984, i.e., the first few seasons of the show; he then went on to work as
   story editor and producer.  Presumably any use of 'boink' attributable to
   Angell's writing would have been during 1983-1984, predating the 1985
   use on _Moonlighting_.  I've not yet seen any concrete evidence that
   'boink' was ever used on _Soap_ other than what's said in the Jargon File
   entry.
   
   A bit of searching in the Google Usenet archives provides some more
   information.  The Jargon File just says this of 'boink':

  <much more; all interesting>

The "consciousness of an association with television" RF refers to has
probably been lost since he wrote that. I doubt whether many users of the word
today would make the association.

Perhaps AUEers are an optimistic lot.  You never know, you know.

The BrE sexual slang word is "bonk". An AUE "boink" is something quite
different, or so I suppose.

Alan Jones