Friday, February 10, 2006

Hawk a Loogie

At the request of Aakanksha, and because we all really should know the definition of "hawking a loogie" before we embark on the weekend:

Hawk a Loogie
This is a slang phrase with many variants. The verb is usually either hawk or hock and the subject varies between loogie, louie, lungie, and lunger. It means to cough up phlegm and dates to the 1970s.

Hawk is an old verb meaning to clear the throat or cough up phlegm. It dates to the late 16th century and is probably echoic in origin. Hock is a corruption of the original hawk.

Regarding the second half, lunger is probably the original. That word has meant a gob of phlegm since 1946, and a tuberculosis patient since the 1890s. The other forms are probably corruptions and variants on this original.


(as found at Word Origins)

Consider yourself enlightened. Possibly in more ways than one.

2 comments:

sue said...

EEEWWWWWWWWW... you did it AGAIN!

Ace said...

Thanks for the explanation!! :D

I could have googled it, but I wanted to give you the utter joy of writing this post.

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