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#92918 01/31/03 11:22 AM
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Bean Offline OP
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I consider unpleasant (or honkin' big) any seeds which are macroscopic and randomly hidden throughout the fruit. Therefore I tolerate apple seeds because I can avoid them (they're localized) but I hate watermelon, partly because of the flavour (I hate cucumber, too), and partly because of the seeds which appear just when you think you've successfully navigated (!) around them all!!!!!!


#92919 01/31/03 11:23 AM
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Stick a watermelon seed in a banana and tell me whether it's honkin' big. And the honkin' big seeds in peaches and avocadoes ain't stopped nobody from eating *them, neither.


#92920 01/31/03 01:48 PM
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Would this have anything to do with Canadian geese? And that's why we USns and others don't (yet) know the expression?


#92921 01/31/03 02:00 PM
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USns and others don't (yet) know the expression?

I use this all the time.

(well, not all the time...…)



formerly known as etaoin...
#92922 01/31/03 02:19 PM
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Yeahbut® you don't count, eta. You're 'borderline.'


#92923 01/31/03 02:28 PM
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Do you Canadian geese have to use honkin' + big together to indicate that something is very big or can honkin' solo by itself?

Also, is honkin' used with any word other than big?

I think it's a very funny word and I plan on using it today--if I can find a place--at the faculty lunch table just to see whether anybody notices. And I suppose the word developed in Canada because something that honks is loud. So, if something is big but in a big, big way, that something "honks" its bigness.


#92924 01/31/03 02:58 PM
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'borderline.'

I don't really consider myself 'borderline,' but I wouldn't have even commented on the usage it seems so natural to me. I'm pretty sure I've heard it used in Arizona.


#92925 01/31/03 03:28 PM
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Oh my gosh, I have laughed out loud, all the way down this thread, you-all! Honkin' Canadian geese! (Look out--Bean and mg might get their feathers ruffled, over that!) A-and, I notice you didn't specify that etaoin is borderline what! <eg> Oh oh OH, my stomach hurts!


#92926 01/31/03 04:57 PM
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Sometimes I can't believe the nits we pick here! mg uses, in an offhand way, a little expression, two words long, and lo and behold! we find out that it's not well-understood everywhere. This is what I love about the Board - we discover that all these things we take for granted are not the same everywhere, and that's what makes life interesting.

My Canadian Oxford says

honking: also honkin' N. Amer. slang very large

So apprently it's not strictly Canadian. HOWEVER

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.


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...[\red]

#92927 01/31/03 10:03 PM
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Honkin' is surely an expression that had its origins in Detroit ... ?

- Pfranz

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