Sunday, August 31, 2008

Hunker Down

Like everyone else in the country paying even a modicum of attention to current events, I am very concerned about the terrible storm bearing down on the Gulf Coast.

However, it seems that it is impossible for anybody, and especially the phalanx of news reporters on the scene, to speak for more than three minutes without using the term "hunker down." What a peculiar, idiomatic term that is. If English were not your native tongue, you might puzzle over that linguistic artifact for quite some time before it made any kind of sense at all.

Here is a dubious look at the possible, but not probable, origin of the term.

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