Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Thats a long article for what amounts to "Dolphin now supports F-Zero AX" =)

Must have taken a heckin' amount of work!

 help



What does "heckin" mean? I associate it with redditors' impersonation of dogs and I was surprised to see it here.

In context in this case, “hell of a lot of.” Seems we English speakers come up with myriad grammatical constructions to seem less offensive in certain forums.

Well, mostly I realized my first sentence was likely to come off more negative than funny (I just like, really enjoyed F-Zero GX back in the day!), so I decided to add a folksy salute to the effort to dilute that. And a smiley face, people heckin' love those =)

Interesting. I associate the term with reddit, not being folksy. I think the folksy term would be "fuckin lot" or "very lot" or "hella".

I think maybe you were trying to cater to the "christians" or snowflake conservatives


It's linguistically a minced oath[1], and they're pretty common in all manner of online contexts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath


Great reference; thank you.

"Heck" is to "Hell" like "Darn" is to "Damn" (or "Freaking" to “F--ing") - a word that sounds similar but is more polite, to be said in public in more religious places and times.

That can't explain "hecking", because there is no form "helling".

It's a form of hella which is "hell of" but hecka sounds silly so you get heckin. (Heck is also used as a substitute for fuck sometimes and takes its forms.)

From Wiktionary entry for heckin':

Etymology

From heck as a euphemism for hell.


This still doesn't make sense as "hellin" isnt a term in wide use. What makes the most sense is transition from "fuckin". But why not simply use fuckin? Surely invoking sex is less taboo than invoking hell.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: