Happy New Year

Best wishes to all of you ...

May 2012 bring us more laughter than tears, and more laughter than 2011. And may the New Year be filled with natural celebrity breasts rather than CGI, implants, or body doubles.

Note on the 2011 Best Nude Scenes poll: I decided to postpone the balloting until we have a chance to see Rooney Mara in Dragon Tattoo and Carey Mulligan's full frontal nudity in Shame. Yeah, I know that the list is a New Year's tradition, but traditions should serve us, not vice-versa.

We had a rare snow-free December up here in the tundra. Oddly enough, it's now snowing like crazy and we're hunkering down for a cold winter! At least we might be hunkering, although I don't really know how to hunker.

OK, let's make "hunker" the word o' the day from the OED:

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hunker, v. orig. Sc.

(ˈhʌŋkə(r))

[Origin obscure: it has the form of an iterative from a stem hunk-. Cf. MDu. hucken, huken (Verwijs and Verdam), MLG. hûken, Du. huiken (Franck), ON. húka, mod.G. hocken (Kluge) to sit on the hams or heels, to squat. These words point to an original ablaut series heuk-, hûk, huk- (hok-); from this hunk-er, might perh. be a nasalized derivative. ON. hok-ra to crouch may be a parallel form; Du. hunkeren to hanker, is not connected.]

a.a intr. To 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.

   1720 A. Pennecuik Streams from Helicon i. 80 And hunk'ring down upon the cald Grass.    1768 Ross Helenore ii. 81 Upo' the ground they hunker'd down a' three.    1789 D. Davidson Seasons 179 Tir'd wi' the steep, an' something dizzy, I hunker'd down.    a 1801 R. Gall Tint Quey 177 Then hunkering down upo' her knees, Poor Hornie o' her milk to ease.    1897 Crockett Lads' Love iii, He appeared‥with his hands on his knees ‘hunkering’ a little.    1902 Dialect Notes II. 237 (Pioneer dialect of S. Illinois.) Hunker down. 1. To crouch in sitting. 2. To kneel.    1907 Kipling Actions & Reactions (1909) 187 We heard Imam Din hunker down on the floor. One gets little out of the East at attention.    1928 Barrie Peter Pan 11, in Plays 39 Hunkering on the ground‥the six are not unlike village gossips gathered round the pump.    1945 J. Steinbeck Cannery Row vii. 26 Mack and the boys sat on the floor, played cards hunkered down.    1946 K. Tennant Lost Haven (1947) ix. 129 Kelly got up, came out, and hunkered down by the sunny office wall. George hunkered down beside him.    1962 Coast to Coast 1961–62 85 The old woman had hunkered down, poking intently at an hibachi, some embers glowing darkly beneath.    1973 N.Y. Times 14 Aug. 34/3 One 14-year-old boy sat on a hornet when he hunkered down to get a better view of the green.

b.b transf. To cower or squat in a lowly manner.

   1790 A. Wilson Poems 210 A wee bit Cot, Bare, hunkerin' on some lanely spot.


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Additions 1993

Add: c.c fig. With down. To concentrate one's resources, esp. in unfavourable circumstances; to dig in, buckle down; spec. (freq. in Mil. contexts) to shelter or take cover, lie low. orig. and chiefly U.S.

   1903 Dialect Notes II. 317 Hunker or hunker down, v.i.‥to get down to one's work.
   1975 Chemical Week 8 Jan. 31/2 There comes a time‥when you should hunker down and ride out the storm.
   1984 N. Giovanni in M. Evans Black Women Writers 207 We must hunker down into that love of the spirit of Black Americans that allowed a janitor to be a deacon in a church.
   1988 Truck & Driver Oct. 49/2, I left the down-change too late and missed the gear. But the Fiat was kindly and just hunkered down and powered on from low revs once a lower gear was pushed in.

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Anyway, I hope our warm December doesn't mean we're going to get fucked out of May. If I'm gonna do some fuckin' world-class hunkering, I want to be rewarded.