Poor Timmer
"i don't mind having hurricane warnings. i don't mind missing work. i don't mind the long lines at the grocery store or the gas station. i don't mind being inconvenienced and without power. i don't mind all of this stuff. the one thing that i do mind is when people, be it on the news, or in person, or via e-mail tell me to "hunker down." have any of you ever heard this expression before? i don't think i have and in the past 6 weeks it's become the state motto. what the hell does "hunker down" mean? anyway, thought you would all get a kick out of my newly favorite phrase. i can picture emma saying " hunker down, much?" i can picture tony saying "hunker this" and i can picture jessica saying "shut the f--- up and hunker on down."
i really wanted to say i miss ya! gotta hunker"
posted by Emma Rose @ 13:12
2 Comments:
At 1:09 PM,
Shawn said…
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
At 1:10 PM,
Shawn said…
from World Wide Words:
It sounds like the most typically American of phrases, but it seems originally to have been Scots, first recorded in the eighteenth century. Nobody seems to know exactly what its origin is, though it has been suggested it’s linked to the Old Norse huka, to squat; that would make it a close cousin of the modern Dutch huiken and German hocken, meaning to squat or crouch, which makes sense. That’s certainly what’s meant by the word in American English, in phrases like hunker down or on your hunkers. The Oxford English Dictionary has a fine description of how to hunker: “squat, with the haunches, knees, and ankles acutely bent, so as to bring the hams near the heels, and throw the whole weight upon the fore part of the feet”. The advantage of this position is that you’re not only crouched close to the ground, so presenting a small target for whatever the universe chooses to throw at you, but you’re also ready to move at a moment’s notice. Hunker down has also taken on the sense of to hide, hide out, or take shelter, whatever position you choose to do it in. This was a south-western US dialect form that was popularised by President Johnson in the mid 1960s. Despite its Scots ancestry, hunker is rare in standard British English.
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