Monday, May 5, 2008

Queen of Outdated Vocabulary

Today in the lab I was cleaning out the fridge and throwing away old vials and runs. Dan was on vacation, so I didn't throw his stuff away. Greg questioned the keeping of some goods from last year. I responded that "I was going to huck the stuff, but-"
Greg stopped me. "What? You mean chuck."
"Um...same thing, but no, I mean huck - to throw."
"That is not a real word."
With Nick to back me up that you can indeed "huck a football", etc., I was off on another work poll. Out of 14 people polled, only 5 had heard or used the word "huck" to mean to throw. The other nine had never heard the term. One said to me, "You are the queen of outdated vocabulary." Apparently I had used the term "Doi" (Doy) the other week in his presence. I am also a fan of words like, "smarts", "hoity toit", and "swank". I even brought back the word "Face!" to my workplace (what you say when you "one up" or demote someone).
Partway through my poll, Elissa found "huck" in the dictionary.

huck
v. to throw, to toss, to short-arm; in disc-based sports, to throw for distance; in cycling, kayaking, snowboarding, and similar sports, to ride over a drop-off. Subjects:
Editorial Note: This term is probably related to chuck ‘to throw with a short arm motion.’ There is a sense of hawk ‘to let fly’ with a single citation in the Oxford English Dictionary.


After finding this definition I obviously shouted "face!" to Greg.
Me? Outdated? I think not.

4 comments:

lisa c. said...

I knew that huck was a real word also! but you could probably say any word to me and I'd think it was real, i love make up words too:)

alisa and sometimes brandon said...

You are the only person I know who says "hoity toit" and I love it!

Evan said...

So apparently the X-Games crowd has adapted "huck" to their own uses and we were all blessed with Burger King's "Big Huckin' Chicken" commercial that scared me at first considering how close it sounds to something naughty, but I grew to love that commercial like I do most of BK's spots.

Bry said...

I love your antiquated terms! They're alot better than what's out there now a days! :)