Edjamacation (jocular spelling of “education”)

“Edjamacation” is a jocular spelling for the word “education.” “Edjamacation” has been cited in print since at least 1934, when it was spoken by the very popular newspaper comic strip character “Popeye.” Many Popeye comic strips have used “edjamacation” over many decades. “Edjamacation” is still used, although there is no longer any identification of the word with the Popeye comic strip.
 
Other humorous misspellings of “education” include “educamation,” “educashun,” “educayshun”  and “edumacation.”
   
 
Wiktionary: edjamacation
Noun
edjamacation
(uncountable)
1. (slang, eye dialect, humorous) Education
 
Urban Dictionary
edjamacation
meaning education; the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
Edjamacation is vital to obtaining a good job.
by Diesel-D Jul 24, 2010
 
Wikipedia: Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Popeye also became the strip’s title in later years.
 
Although Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut in 1929, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features’ most popular properties during the 1930s.
 
2 December 1934, Portsmouth (OH) Times, “Popeye’s Cartoon Club,” comic section, pg. 29(?):
AHOY PALS…I ADMITS I AIN’T GOT MUCH EDJAMACATION…
 
22 July 1944, Canton (OH) Repository, comics section, pg. 1:
WEN I WAS ABOUT EIGHT MUNT’S OLD ME PAPPY HIRED ME A TOTOR—I DIDN’T GET MUCH EDJAMACATION—BUT ME TEACHER LEARNT A LOT ABOUT SELF-DEFENSK.
POPEYE
 
15 August 1959, Galveston (TX) News,  “Thimble Theatre” (Popeye) comic strip, pg. 7, col. 3:
WHAT KIND OF FUTURE CAN YOU EXPECT WIT’OUT NO EDJAMACATION?
 
Google Books
Educating Disturbed Adolescents:
Theory and Practice

By Peyton Towns
New York, NY: Grune & Stratton
1981
Pg. 42:
Lines (Good ole traditional “edjamacation”).
 
Google Books
March 1986, SPIN magazine, “The Buster Poindexter Story,” pg. 15, col. 2:
For more than two years Poindexter has been packing them in at a New York Irish pub called Tramps with his band the Banshees of Blue and their sophisticated, edjamacated, and sometimes slightly inebriated repertoire of rhythm and blues.
 
27 November 1999, The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), “Time to get zis party into a psychiatrist’s chair,” pg. 13:
And for all those skinny, pale, cough-blighted children currently living in damp council flats and being edjamacated at sink schools in Glasgow, aka Caracas on the Clyde, there’s always Children in Need.
   
Student Life (Washington University in St. Louis)
20 Questions with Jason Ortwerth and Steve Schmidt
By Renee Hires
Posted April 19, 2004 at 12:00 pm
(...)
SL: Why did you guys decide to transfer to WU?
JO: To get edjamacated. Why did you come, Steve?
 
Google Books
The Harder They Fall:
Celebrities Tell Their Real-Life Stories of Addiction and Recovery

By Gary Stromberg and Jane Merrill
Center City, MN: Hazelden
2005
Pg. 85:
He says things like “edjamacation.” You always have to be aware of his underlying humor.
 
Out of Africa by Karen Bliksem
December 7 2008 at 03:59
Sefficans are so edjamacated
There’s a great documentary on the movie circuit about the struggle between Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki.