There's been a fly (or two) in my ointment for yonks !

[Francis Nugent Dixon]

Hi from Paris,

I reply not to the technical side of the subject but to the
YONKS reference.

We used to use the term often in Liverpool in the 60's
(I left England at that time to come to live in Paris).

Its classical use was "I haven't seen him for yonks"

An unconvincing explanation can be found in :

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-yon1.htm

Yonks defines some imprecise duration of time, but
definitely very long (how long is long ?). We used to
use backslang a lot in those days, and as donkeys
live to be quite old, "Donkeys Years" becomes
"Yonkeys Dears" in backslang. This for me is quite
a satisfactory answer to the origin of the word !

Apart from technical discussions concerning Revolution,
this forum is becoming very eclectic ....... !

-Francis