LL-L "Lexicon" 2004.04.20 (03) [E]

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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2004.04.20 (02) [E/LS]

In West Texas (proper name I'll have you know) they use the word hunker for
squatting (sort of like golfers lining up a putt).  Only when you hunker you
might do it for a long time, not just to look closely at something.  They
say that people will have whole conversations while hunkering.  Of course,
for the rest of us Texans (yes, us Texans, that's how we talk here ya know),
we say that West Texans hunker so much in order to stay out of the wind ;-)

Mark

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Isn't "to hunker" ('to squat by sitting on one's haunches') a general
English word?  Might it be on its way out, and that's the reason why there
are doubts about it and it is absent from a few dictionaries?

In American English I sometimes hear 'to hunker down', either meant
literally (e.g., "She hunkered down by the flower bed and started weeding")
or figuratively ('to get down to work', 'to get cracking', e.g., 'Time for
you to hunker down!').

Glenn, apparently it *is* related to German _hocken_, also to Lowlands Saxon
(Low German) _huken_, Dutch _huiken_ and Old Norse _húka_.  It is strange,
though, that it has that _-n-_.  I wonder if it is related to "hock" ("joint
in the hinder leg of a quadruped between the true knee and the fetlock, the
angle of which points backward"), as in "ham hock."

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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