hone to

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>In his entertaining and enviably well-written book The Power of Babel, John
>McWhorter writes (pp. 127-8), "Celtic languages have marched to the beat of
>their own drummer to this extent because they have not been constrained by
>contact with the other languages into honing to certain patterns."  I've
>seen plenty of "hone in on", attributed by MW Dictionary of English Usage to
>George Bush during his '79-80 primary campaign against Reagan.  However,
>McWhorter's "hone to" doesn't sound like this or like anything else I've run
>into.  Any one else have anything on this usage?

I've never heard of this.

I speculate "hone to" here is probably an error ("slip of the mind") for
"hew to" = "adhere/conform to" which is itself uncommon enough that it
might not be remembered well. [You hone your axe, then hew the wood with
it, right?] Less likely it could be a typographical or similar error for
the same expression.

-- Doug Wilson