Gunkholing ?1995

[Baker, John]

        I was right to think the term could be taken back earlier.  From a 6/22/56 article by Peggy Reynolds in the Washington Post:  "Lt. Col. Dickinson, and Club's cruisemaster, intends to go gunkholing in the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay for a week's duration, in his 21-foot Lone Star outboard cruiser."  The same writer used the noun in an 11/25/56 article entitled "Every Sailor Seeks a Gunkhole."

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Baker, John
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 7:17 PM
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Subject: Re: Gunkholing ?1995


        Well, www.gunkhole.org says that gunkhole as a noun means "a small, sheltered cove for anchoring small watercraft" and as an intransitive verb means "to make a series of short pleasure trips by boat, as from island to island."  There was a 1984 book by Al and Jo B. Cummings called Gunkholing in the San Juans, but I bet the term goes back earlier than that.  I had never heard it before.

John Baker