Nattering about the vernacular in Firefly (meaning & etymology of 'horking', 'hork', 'hawk' etc. Don't ask why.):

amych: I agree that you can hack up a lung -- but you'd never hawk or hork one, at least that I've heard. So it sounds to me like a different thing altogether -- it's a cough and not a throat-clearing.

Nutty: You can hack up a grandma, if you're a serial killer.

• If you're a taxi driver or a sucky writer (or both), you ARE a hack.
  
• If you're a snotty naturalist and/or survivalist and/or Wanna Blessed Be, you've got the word Hawk in your name.
  
• If you're selling something by yellling at passersby about it, you're hawking.
  

Aint English grand?

billytea: If you're selling something by yellling at passersby about it, you're hawking.
Whereas if you do so by typing copy into a voice simulator, you're Stephen Hawking

Nutty: If you ride a crappy horse in England, it's called hacking, right? Anyway, there's such a thing as a hacking jacket, so maybe it means just riding around for riding around's sake, and doesn't include judgement on the quality of horseflesh.

victor infante: "Whereas if you do so by typing copy into a voice simulator, you're Stephen Hawking."

• Or if you're a singing bank robber, you're Hudson Hawk.
  
• Or if you're Xander using a superhero codename to fight vampires, you're Nighthawk.

Nutty:

• When you sell something to a pawn shop, you have put it in hock.
  
• When you are eating a pig's legs, you are eating ham hock

Steph L: So when you have a meal of pig leg bought at a pawn shop, you're eating hocked hock? And the pawnshop owner who sells it is hawking hocked hock?

Betsy Hanes Perry: When you say "I am a licensed companion, and I'll be on your planet soon", you hawk your wares.

Dani: Isn't hock also a kind of fortified wine or sherry? t /vague memories from reading 18th-century historical fiction

Steph L: Like hawking hocked hock.

Sophia Brooks: And when you regurgitate, have you horked hocked hock?

Nutty: Now is the perfect time to go all Latin on you: hic, haec, hoc. Also, with the timely post about wine, hence the detour into hic. Speaking of, where's Hec?

DavidS: "Speaking of, where's Hec?" I knew that was going to happen. Hec horked Hawking's hocked hock. Heck, Hawking hawked Hec's horking.

(edited for sense)

(hysterical laughter.)

Matt in Natter:

Buying a drink for the cute Swedish guy you mistakenly assume to be out clubbing with his wife: $5.

Comfy room with faux fireplace at the Newbury Street Guest House: $125.

Having the best sex of your life and then realizing that everyone in several row houses across the street can see through the bay window into aforementioned room: priceless.

Julie in Firefly (no spoilers) - context: Joss's strengths and weaknesses in developing mythology, chronology and cosmology...

Yeah, see, the way it goes for me...

Littlestudent!Joss kinda slept through those "scriptwriting background setting" courses and sailed right on past "Mythology & Chronology: Their place in your world"

I thank all the powers that be he had strep throat through the unending week of "Anvil Usage 101". And I'm not commenting on the rumour about his paper on Father figures in film. (Subtitled "Father figures? What stinkin' Father figures?")

But.. (but, butt :)

He lurved the semester o' "make Mr Metaphor your friend" and "Reality? You CAN'T have too much reality" and its minor "Give 'em what they need, not what they ask for!" Which is all good with me 'cause he's more an instinct and less a research kind of guy. I believe the old school call that.. flying by the seat of your pants. Works for me!

Although... he seemed a little overfond of that visiting retcon professor. (I'm just sayin' :) And wow re: His term paper on the sexual allegory of pewter kitchenware.

Betsy, in Natter:

Child just asked me what I wanted to do with popcorn ball.

Child apparently didn't hear wings of Angel of Death whizzing over head.

"It is my responsibility as a journalist to make you my bitch."

Either Ple or Michele T., I am unsure, but when I find out, I'm tagging it.

Actually, part of the Ple/Misha tag-team NewsRadio quoteathon.

Betsy Hanes Perry in Natter - the full thing

I have spent the evening so far dealing with other people's crises.

First I got home and discovered that somebody had let the cat escape outside. Spent time outside calling for cat and alternately comforting hysterical children. Eventually got children to settle inside. Sat on back porch waiting. Saw cat. Dark grey cat with use of only three legs. Wrong cat. Saw another cat. Grey tabby with plumy tail. Looked promising. Followed cat to side of house. Yup, our cat. Sat on ground and started talking soothingly to cat. Child came up behind and said "Shadow?" Cat spooked. yelled at child. Started talking soothingly to cat. Cat enjoyed being outside. checked out leaf. Checked out wall. Checked out out of doors. Grabbed cat. Took cat inside.

Then talked one child through homework hysteria. Two different hysterias. Then talked other child through discussion of why no algebra had been done for two weeks. Then grounded other child.

Tired. v. tired. A need for many martinis.

And, no, we will not be getting more cat. Or more child.

(a few posts later)

Child just asked me what I wanted to do with popcorn ball.

Child apparently didn't hear wings of Angel of Death whizzing over head.

Betsy (not long after the above) : Ah, liqueur chocolates. Two sins at once. If they were only penis-shaped, it would be three.

Gudanov: The cat only tried to kill me once while we had it. Not too bad for a cat.

Trudy in Natter

Tony Little, Susan Powder, The JuiceMan and young Richard Simmons are enough proof for me that zero body fat is dangerous and your metabolism starts going after your plumper brain cells in desperation.