Hock

[Dr. Goodword]

• hock •

Pronunciation: hahk • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Nouns, verb

Meaning: 1. (Noun) The tarsal joint of an animal that points backward. 2. (Noun, British) Rhein wine and, by extension, to white wines in general. 3. (Verb) To pawn.

Notes: Today we are having the biggest sale in alphaDictionary's history: THREE words for the price of one (and a very fair price, indeed). The three entries in Meaning above represent three different words only coincidentally spelled and pronounced the same.

In Play: Pork hocks are many diners' favorite delicacy: "My favorites at this restaurant are ham hock with fruit compote, and seared salmon with a chilled raspberry vinaigrette." In the UK, the second word refers to any Rhein wine: "I usually wash both down with a glass of chilled hock." The verb is just a colloquial term for "pawn": "The prices here are very moderate so that you don't have to hock the family silver to eat your favorite dishes."

Word History: Today's giveaway includes two nouns and a verb. The sense of a tarsal joint originates in Old English hohsinu "heel sinew", made of hoh "heel" + sinu "sinew". Hoh derives from denazalized Proto-Germanic hanhaz, source also of German Hachse "hock". Proto-Germanic hanhaz was the Germanic version of PIE kenk- "heel". The British reference to Rhein wine came from a clipping of hockamore, a folk etymology of Hochheimer, from the city name of Hochheim am Main, where much Rhein wine is still produced. The substitute for pawn comes from 19th century American slang. In hock originally meant "in prison" or "in debt", a word borrowed from Dutch hok "pen, sty, kennel, doghouse ". (Let's now give an e-bow to Deborah Moggio, who submitted today's three words by raising the question, "Can all the meanings of hock be derived from one source?")

[Slava]

The depths to which the Agora has plunged:

A gentleman, having ordered a meal at a fine London restaurant, decides that he'd like some wine to accompany his meal; so he summons the sommelier and asks for a bottle of hock.

"Hock, sir?" asks the sommelier.

"Yes, hock, man. You know, hic, haec, hoc, hunc, hanc, hoc etc."

"Hmm ... very good, sir."

The food arrives, but without the wine, which perturbs the gentleman slightly as he's accustomed to a high quality of service. He begins to dine and at the next opportunity he beckons the sommelier again.

"Didn't I order a bottle of hock?"

"Yes sir, but then you declined it."

Original 2008 post here.

[LukeJavan8]

I've seen 'hough' - what is that?
I cannot remember the context, except maybe as one of the
'ough' words.

[David Myer]

I have to respond to Slava's rather esoteric joke, with this one:

A visitor to Boston enquires of his cab-driver, ‘where can i get scrod around here?’

Cabbie replies, 'I’ve been asked that question many times over the years, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive’.


Readers may be amused to read Wikipedia on scrod if they are not familiar with it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrod

[Slava]

I've seen 'hough' - what is that?
I cannot remember the context, except maybe as one of the
'ough' words.

According to dictionary.com, it is Scots for hock, among other things:

noun: Scot. hock (defs. 1, 2).
verb (used with object): Scot. to hamstring.
verb (used without object): British Dialect Obsolete. to clear the throat; hack.

I seem to recall seeing it as a last name, too.

[bbeeton]

Pluperfect subjunctive, eh?

At the original Legal Sea Foods restaurant in Inman Square, Cambridge, one could acquire a t-shirt with the text "I got scrod last night" and the image of a smiling cartoon fish on a plate. That image is still prominent in the Legal publicity, and I still have the t-shirt, although I understand that the Inman Square location is extinct.

[LukeJavan8]

Thanks, slava.

[damoge]

THANK YOU, SLAVA!

that was the fourth use of the word I was wondering about!
The throat clearing, which I assume (despite knowing the dangers of doing so) that it was onomatopoetic.

I guess I still don't know if that is the case, but it's nice to know where it came from.

And, Barbara, thanks for the memory jog. BTW, most all of Inman Square is extinct as I knew it. I"ve not been home for a lot of years, but even then, it was unrecognizable. Of course, at least back then, Legal Seafood was still around, and in fact, all over the place.

My favorite Bahston T shirt, was the one given to my elder son when he was about 10 and we moved back to Massachusetts. It said:

Welcome to dear old Boston
The home of the bean and the cod
and a few choice nuts

I don't know if you are familiar with the original doggerel, but when he opened the package and read this version, my son said, with great dismay
"and we're related to most of them!!"

The original version, the first two lines and then
Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots,
And the Cabots only to God.

[Slava]

Going back to the original Latin declension bit, and tying in with throat clearing, we do have the highly irregular Latin verb:

spitto, spittere, hocktui, splatum.

[damoge]

AHA!!!
LOL!!!!
I sent a little story as the "hock" request. The hero of said tale was
Hawke P. Toohey

[LukeJavan8]

Going back to the original Latin declension bit, and tying in with throat clearing, we do have the highly irregular Latin verb:

spitto, spittere, hocktui, splatum.

The best I've heard in months. Bravo

[Philip Hudson]

This brings to mind the learned Latin phrase for an inveterate debtor: "In hock too often."