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Honkin' big is not an expression I use much myself (in fact I think my post above when I was more or less just quoting mg was probably a first), but I've certainly heard it before and know what it means. In reply to:
In looking up honking I ran across hork spit, the act of spitting, according to the dictionary, with the additional qualifier added by me that it usually refers to the type of spitting preceded by the sound "hork" which is marked as Canadian slang. Well, that's another one I thought everyone knew. Live and learn.
Surely this is just a Canadian mis-spelling of hawk? For any who may not be familiar with the expression, hawking up is a major expectoration preceded by much throat-clearing and coughing.
Bingley
Bingley
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Surely this is just a Canadian mis-spelling of hawk?Presume not such a thing! Misspellers not we are! Onomatopoeists are we. Hence honkin', methinks....  Actually my Canajun Oxford, eh? sez "hork" is an alteration of "hawk." Not a misspleling. Plese. We nevir mispel anythink. We ar a nation of very literut peopl. Dunno that I envisioned quite how honkin' big them banana seeds are....I wonder how they do compare with watermelon seeds? I wonder how the wild banana compares, for size, with the tame banana? While I'm at it, I wouldn't have said an avocado had a honkin' big seed. I would have said it had a honkin' big pit. But that's a whole nother discussion, prolly.... And finally I feel compelled to add, because of Bean's example of the honkin' big truck, that I actually used that phrase once and had to elaborate....I rang up the police station to report someone who had passed me dangerously (I get quite righteous about dangerous driving), and I said, "This honkin' big truck passed me on a solid line....Okay, it wasn't actually honking...." The policewoman laughed and said she knew what I meant, a friend of hers uses that expression all the time...!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Somehow great seems to go better with honkin than big does. As in "He gives a honkin great hork every morning. Sounds like he's bringing half his windpipe up."
Bingley
Bingley
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Bingley, you're right - for your bit o' the world! Canajuns seem to use "big" rather than "great" for a size adjective.
I just remember my British-born-and-raised father saying things like, "This ruddy great truck passed me on the highway," etc....
I heard someone with a British accent talking about how the 12th century English kings used to go "hawking" and I now quite unnerstan' why Canajuns corrupted it to "horking"...!
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But.... but ... to the non-rhotically inclined among us, hawking and horking sound the same.
Bingley
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hawking and horking sound the sameShorely the vowel is a tad longer in the former? rhoticism or not?! (I had to look up "rhotic" btw....) but yer right, I guess. Damn. I think I'm falling in love....
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"Shorely the vowel is a tad longer in the former?"
Mais non! I was married to an Australian in my former life and you honest-to-god couldn't tell whether he was saying "porn" or "pawn". He and one of his fellow nationals were once talking about a small town near Adelaide(his home) and I thought for all the world the name of the place was Gorla. Until I saw a map one day and saw the town Gawler. Oh how they laughed, those people of dubious parentage, when I told them what I thought. "So OK," sez I,"how would you pronounce something spelled g-o-r-l-a?" and they both said "Gawler." Foreigners talk funny. I know this because I was one the whole year I lived in Australia and people always stared when I spoke out loud.
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Edit: For WordWind: I was going to add that yes, things can only be honkin' big, not honkin' small or honkin' smelly or anything else...
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well, in a Britslang moment, I'd have to say it would in any case be impossible for something to be honking smelly as 'honking' means smelly.
As in, I think that cheese may have gone off.... oooh, yes, it's absolutely honking.
Frequently also applied to feet.
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OP
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I often use raunchy as slang for "bad smelling". raunch would be the noun form.
eg. "What IS that raunch? It's making my stomach turn!"
eg. "Now THAT is a raunchy smell."
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'honking' means smelly.
And so does "humming," as I recall from dating a Brit feller while backpacking in Oz....(he came out of the loo in our room in Brisbane - the only hostel room we ever had that was ensuite, I think - and said, "O, don't go in there - it's humming!") (I love that man, how he made me laugh!)
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