Ike's legacy: Hunkering down?

Fortunately, the media has embraced a new buzzword to replace — or at least temporarily displace — "hockey mom". Unfortunately, that buzzword (buzz phrase?) is none other than hunker down.

Houstonist had used "hunker down" in conversation about Hurricane Ike over the past week, but the first official reference to hunkering that we noticed came yesterday, when Harris County Judge Ed Emmett instructed Houston-area residents to hunker:

"We are still saying: Please shelter in place, or to use the Texas expression, hunker down," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county's chief administrator. "For the vast majority of people who live in our area, stay where you are. The winds will blow and they'll howl and we'll get a lot of rain, but if you lose power and need to leave, you can do that later."

Little did we know that Emmett's use of "hunker down" would spark a media frenzy. But today, everyone's saying it, from local TV reporters to the guys on CNN and The Weather Channel. We think all Texans have a good idea of what it means to hunker down, but where did the phrase come from? Glad you asked — we'll let World Wide Words explain:

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.

Well, yes. WWW goes on to note the venerable Oxford English Dictionary's 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." (Which, by the way, is not a recommended position if you happen to be in the path of Mayor White's 20-foot wall of water.) And then there's this:

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.

Wherever you happen to be hunkered, we hope you're safe, happy and/or getting totally wasted. (And yes, in case you wondered, you can buy a "hunker down" shirt, hat or mug. Just don't wear it around us.)