Hassle
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 1:12 pm
Can there be a more apt word, both for Agorists trying to understand words, phrases, and propositions (not that kind of proposition - see what I mean ?) and for us all in trying to understand our mixed-up world, as anno domini (poor chap !) 2005 fades into ditto 2006 ?...
Henri
Henri
has·sle Listen: [ hăsǝl ] Informal
n.
1. An argument or a fight.
2. Trouble; bother.
v. has·sled, has·sling, has·sles
v. intr.
To argue or fight: customers hassling with merchants over high prices.
v. tr.
To bother or harass: street gangs hassling passersby.
[ Origin unknown.]
Word History: It is difficult to believe that there were no hassles before 1945, the year in which the noun hassle is first recorded in English. The origins of this word might be considered a hassle for the etymologist. An English dialect word, hassle, meaning "to hack at, cut with a blunt knife and with a sawing motion," is recorded at the end of the 19th century. A Southern dialect word, hassle, "to pant, breathe heavily," is also a possible source. A more popular notion has been that hassle is a blend, but here again we have a hassle. Three separate possibilities have been proposed, a combination of harass and hustle, haggle and tussle, and haggle and wrestle. Given all these possibilities, it is clear why words such as hassle end up with the etymology "origin unknown."