motorhuckle boots

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Motorhuckle" appears in HDAS on the basis of King's extraordinary
popularity and the fact that he used it at least twice.
But perhaps it is (or was) idiosyncratic after all.

JL
On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 2:48 AM, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: motorhuckle boots
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter's "Random House Historical Dictionary of American
> Slang: H-O" has an entry for motorhuckle on page 599. The two cites he
> gives are the two you mentioned:
>
> motorhuckle n. motorcycle. Joc.
> 1983 S. King Christine 79: Get on your motorhuckle boots, boys.
> 1981-85 S. King It 340: All of them with their motorhuckle boots
> cocked up on the seats in front of them.
>
> Reviewing the top Google matches for "motorhuckle" reveals a large
> number of spam-like websites with fragments of copied text. Many
> matches are occurring in the sentences of King's novels that feature
> the word "motorhuckle", and in word mishmashes. Google (Everything)
> initially estimates "About 794 results" for "motorhuckle", but
> repeatedly clicking on next exhausts the matches on "Page 11 of 104
> results".
>
> Problems with the "Google Ngram Viewer" have been discussed on the
> list. For the primary search engine the problem of manipulators
> constructing artificial websites with automated junk content may grow
> over time.
>
> On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 12:34 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      motorhuckle boots
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Stephen King uses the term "motorhuckle boots" in his novels _It_ and
> > _Christine_.  Google returns 438 raw hits including one with a picture
> > of the boots.  But I haven't been able to find anything about the
> > origin of the term.  OED doesn't include it, and I don't have access
> > to DARE.
> >
> > Herb
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org