Hoe

[Page Stephens]

A friend of mine who grew up on a farm was puzzled by something he saw written on a wall near where I used to live. It read "(girl's name long since forgotten) is a hoe."

He wondered why it would be either a compliment or an insult to call a woman an agricultural implement until he realized that the writer didn't know how to spell ho, a shortened version of whore and didn't realize what he had done.

This brings up another problem with the word hoe.

Now it is possible that the phrase, "It's a tough road to hoe." refers to the days when gangs used to use hand tools to work on roads but I suspect that the original phrase was "It's a tough row to hoe." which makes more sense in an agricultural context but which city people never thought of when they misheard the sentence.

Having hoed a few tough rows in my life but having never hoed a road since that form of road maintenance went out except in rural areas before I was born even though when I grew up my hometown still used horse drawn wagons to repair roads I suspect that it is a simple misunderstanding due to mispronunciation.

Even though I was at one time in my life an expert marksman I didn't realize until I was in my twenties that you should not take everything someone tells you lock, stock and barrel and that a flash in the pan referred to anything but a baseball rookie who had a great spring training but who fizzled out once the real season began.

Page Stephens