Michael from Jones, Michigan, says he was stationed on a U.S. Army base in Germany in the early 1960s. If there was a gust of cold wind, a fellow soldier would say the hawk’s out. This expression is largely associated with Chicago, Illinois, where the Hawk refers to the frigid wind coming off of Lake Michigan and the bear is sometimes used to mean “bitter cold.” As early as the 1870s, the terms Hawkins, and Old Hawkins, and Old Mr. Hawkins were applied to “cold weather.” The idea may have been reinforced by the fact that in the 1930s, jazz musician Coleman Hawkins blew the saxophone and was nicknamed the Hawk. This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...