I think you mean "junkie" (if you're talking about someone who's addicted to drugs). "Junky" (which I don't think is actually used) would mean "related to junk" (trash, rubbish).

Academic
Are these sentences correct:
1) I talked to your on-and-off junky boyfriend.
2) I talked to your junky on-and-off boyfriend.
3) I talked to that on-and-off junky boyfriend of yours.
4) I talked to that junky on-and-off boyfriend of yours.
In which case:
a) the fellow was an on-and-off junky and 'your boyfriend'
and in which case:
b) He was 'your on-and-off' boyfriend and a junky
I think '1' and '3' are ambiguous and '2' and '4' correspond to 'b', but if I heard '1' and '3', I'd assume they meant 'b'.
Gratefully,
Navi.
I think you mean "junkie" (if you're talking about someone who's addicted to drugs). "Junky" (which I don't think is actually used) would mean "related to junk" (trash, rubbish).
Remember - if you don't use correct capitalisation, punctuation and spacing, anything you write will be incorrect.
I would use "on-off boyfriend" in AusE.
Thank you both very much,
Yes, I meant 'junkie'. I am sorry about that.
Gratefully,
Navi.
"On-and-off boyfriend" sounds natural to my AmE-trained ears.
I am not a teacher.
We don't really use on-and-off junky, so the phrase would be interpreted to apply to boyfriend in all four cases.
1) and 3) sound most natural to me.
I would assume that in most cases the person was a junkie and that the on-off part referred to their boyfriend status.
Bookmarks