Malfunction Junction

English

Etymology

Attested in military publications from the early Cold War years. Perhaps popularized, and widened in sense, by the 1973 Schoolhouse Rock! segment "Conjunction Junction".

Proper noun

Malfunction Junction

1. (US, informal) A traffic jam, or any location noted for such congestion.
   • 2003, James Gifford, Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux, editors, Culture + the State: Landscape and Ecology, CRC Studio, →ISBN, page 152:

     The center of the new city was on the Clark Fork River, one and one half miles from what would become Malfunction Junction, along the newly built military road (now an interstate highway) and what became a railroad line, […]

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2024) “malfunction junction n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang