Hurricane Season Brings More Than Rain
It’s hurricane season again (has been if Florida for a while now) which means three things:
- Every television station in the south runs scaaaaarrrryyy promos about the latest burp in the weather off the coast of Africa so that you’ll “Tune In At ELEVEN!”
- People suffering from the whole a-little-knowledge-can-be-a-bad-thing syndrome will be telling us that either a) “This is due to global warming!” and “We broke the earth!” or b) “It’s the end of days people, Jesus is coming and you’ll all be judged.”
- That you’re going to hear way too much of the word hunker in every variation: “We’re gonna hunker down,” “They’ve hunkered down,” “I’m just hunkering down,” “Hey you! Hunker down! Hunker down!” etc.
I’d argue that the first is irritating (though every time they talk about a tropical depression I think of Anna Nicole Smith – ohhh…too soon?) and the second is annoying, but the third is the worst of the bunch.
I hate the word hunker. Hunker. Hunker. Hunkered. Hunkering. Hunkerer. Is it really that hard to think of alternatives? Like for instance, “we’re going to stay inside now,” or “we’ll just keep out of the storm,” or “I’m not going out in that shit, are you kidding me?” or “I’m lashing myself to the toilet in the basement – call me when it blows over.” See? There are four, just off the top of my head, and I’m not a fancy professional broadcaster like Al Roker.
You should suggest the alternative phrases to The Weather Channel folks who relish standing ouside (sideways often) in a storm babbling inanely. I’d love to hear Jim Cantore say, “I’m lashing myself to the toilet in the basement – call me when it blows over.”
Hunker down sounds like someone is preparing to take a hearty poop
I’d never thought it of that way, Jo…now I’ll never be able to hear that word again without cracking up. And I’m not telling the boys about it because one a potty joke gets in the house, it’ll never leave.
I can’t tall you how badly I wanted Ann Curry to blow off the roof of that parking garage. What exactly is the point of that?
Show offs, that’s what.
“See how I am into my job? I’ll do anything for a story. You can’t replace me!”
Brad….very funny…I always wanted to come back as a Weatherman, because while they tell us to “hunker down”, they get to go out and play in the 100 mph winds….lucky bastards
Joe: during the first of the two vicious 2004 hurricanes down here I went outside in the middle of it in the 120 MPH winds. Naked.
true story