CLEARING THE DECKS

In December, you may have “decked the halls” (as in a season carol) for one or another celebration, including New Year’s Eve. Now that it is January, we begin to put all that away as our minds begin to focus on the needs of the new year. A big seller in January is storage supply. We take the past year and sort it to save and store, give to others, chuck it out.

Chuck is the word for today.  Yes, it means to throw out, to discard. My childhood friends used to talk about “up chucking” meaning to vomit or throw up. Another word for throwing up or out is a synonym, spewing. With this, we are still on track. Chuck it up can also mean to “spit it out” implying blurts of information rather than a flow. That seems to fit my childhood friends’ idea.

But there is also the expression to chuck under someone’s chin which is a gentle touch meant to show friendliness. Where does that fit in with tossing out?

Then, too, we must not forget that a nickname for Charles is Chuck. So, if someone says, “chuck it up (or out)”, are you picturing some person with that name?  And how is Charles but called Chuck somehow involved in this? If you have a cartoon mind, you might see a man flying through the air and holding your trash. Or maybe you see a garbage team wearing tee shirts reading “Chuck”. A true cartoonist has probably better images than these.

Wandering into other languages, for English is notorious for borrowing words, we discover woodchuck. A woodchuck is a groundhog and does not chuck wood. North American natives, for example the Algonquin tribe, had a word that sounded like “woodchuck” and the early foreign settlers adopted it for their own though its spelling created an English word which made no sense to the reality of the animal.

The long relationship of the British with India brought the game of polo to England with its terminology, including “chukker”. Sounds like it should be related, right?  Watching the game and seeing the players hit the ball down the field, you might be tempted believe it is a movement like kicking out or getting rid of (chucking), but you would be wrong. Chukker is the name given to a time segment in the game, and of course, it comes from Sanskrit.

Finally, for this piece, we have the chukka, a form of boot. Again, we need to thank the British for this as these boots originally resembled those worn by polo players. WWII British soldiers were outfitted with these in the desert campaigns, and it is their name for this style of boot.

Do hope this put you in the mood to start in on your new year sorting, so that you are ready to start chucking items and your thoughts to clear space, including this blog.

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