A reporter who uses any one of these phrases should be heavily fined! There are probably more, but here’s three that make my skin crawl.
“…dodged a bullet…”
“…out of harm’s way…”
and my all time least favorite:
“…hunkered down…”
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September 27th, 2005 at 11:45 pm
I share your view: “hunkered down” is by far the one that makes my skin crawl the most when I hear it used by Yankee reporters. I suspect most of those who use this expression, which I associate with the poorer denizens of the rural South, have no idea what it means. It seems to derive from the Scots-Irish who are the ancestors of many southerners.
Here’s one explanation: “It sounds like the most typically American of phrases, but it seems originally to have been Scots, first recorded in the eighteenth century.
Nobody seems to know exactly what its origin is, though it has been suggested it’s linked to the Old Norse huka, to squat; that would make it a close cousin of old Dutch huiken and modern German hocken, meaning to squat or crouch, which makes sense. That’s certainly what’s meant by the word in American English, in phrases like hunker down or on your hunkers.
The Oxford English Dictionary has a fine description of how to hunker: “squat, with the haunches, knees, and ankles acutely bent, so as to bring the hams near the heels, and throw the whole weight upon the fore part of the feet”. The advantage of this position is that you’re not only crouched close to the ground, so presenting a small target for whatever the universe chooses to throw at you, but you’re also ready to move at a moment’s notice.
Hunker down has also taken on the sense of to hide, hide out, or take shelter, whatever position you choose to do it in. This was a south-western US dialect form that was popularised by President Johnson in the mid 1960s. Despite its Scots ancestry, hunker is rare in standard British English.”
Actually, I personally associate it not with an effort to present a small target but rather the position described above as assumed by hunters attempting to be inconspicuous while waiting for game.
October 2nd, 2005 at 6:42 am
During the 1950’s, my hometown produced several brothers who won the All American Soap Box Derby. One of them, Terry Townsend, appeared on What’s My Line, a popular tv show that sported a panel of sophisticated NY celebrities like Bennet Cerf, Dorothy Killgalian and Kitty Carlisle. Terry used that expression to describe his posture while sitting in his car. To be sure, the urbane panel of intellectuals did not have the foggiest idea what he meant. But, then, they weren’t from Indiana.