Honyock

Do you ever think of words you heard, when you were a child, but not anymore?  My mom use to call her kids honyocks,  there were 6 of us.  But she always said it with a smile on her face.  One who is wild, and/or crazy, is the definition I had in mind; a noun.  I looked it up, to see if I was right, and found that a honyock, usually a male, is crude, unsophisticated and acts like a peasant.  He is a rustic oaf.  But the definition includes that it is a playful term of address.  My memories were correct then, and mom was just being playful.

I thought about that word for the 1^st time, in a long while, during cross country practice.  I was on my 3-wheel recumbent (cool trike) I ride, to keep up with my middle school runners, and so that when I stop, I am automatically sitting down (the safest place for me.) As the kids circled the park we were in, the word appeared in my brain, out of nowhere. 

As soon as I turned to my co-coach, I knew he would be familiar with the word.  He’s a cowboy, from Eastern Montana (love the guy) and he grew up on a farm.  When I asked him about honyock , he laughed and said, Honyocker?

I told him I never heard Honyocker .  And quickly added, Honyocker would mean one who honyocks, and honyack would be a verb!  It’s a noun, Coach!

The word isn’t in Spell Check, and I had to look in a couple on-line dictionaries.  I found it in Dictionary.com, and indicated it came from their Slang Dictionary.

Even though I checked other on-line Slang  Dictionaries, I never did find Honyocker.   But, I did find someone who’s mom use to use it, often, and guess what?  She’s from Eastern Montana, too, so I guess it’s a regional MT thing.  Now I have a new word to use, and that's neat, I like new words :)