To commemorate the dastardly cyber attacks, I composed a new pentelope for GH, inspired by 30 little demonstrative pronouns/adjectives he and I once learned by heart as small boys [for newcomers who are unfamiliar with pentelopes, see here or type the term in the blog's search field].
Forsooth I know not why tis him they hack [1],
It grieveth me full sore but, what the heck!
They seemingly consider him a hick [2]
And aim his ham to string[3] or him to hock[4],
Perchance his mail to black[5], or simply huck.[6]
Notes
[1] : hack has multiple pages in the complete OED, but here is their first recorded instance of the cyber sense: d. transitive. To gain unauthorized access to or control over (a computer system, network, a person's telephone communications, etc.), typically remotely. Also with the owner(s) of the system, network, etc., as object. 1983 N.Y. Times 28 Aug. 20 Hackers..wouldn't..think of calling up on the telephone and saying, ‘Hi, I'm a bright young guy and I'd like to hack your computer’.
[2] hick: a. An ignorant countryman; a silly fellow, booby. Now chiefly U.S.1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Hick, any Person of whom any Prey can be made..; also a silly Country Fellow.
[3] hamstring v, transitive; 2. transferred and figurative. To disable as if by hamstringing; to cripple, destroy the activity or efficiency of. 1641 Milton Of Reformation 60 So have they hamstrung the valour of the Subject by seeking to effeminate us all at home.
[4] hock: (a) intransitive. To observe Hocktide. (b) transitive. To bind or otherwise beset (persons) in the way practised at Hocktide. v1727 Cowell's Interpreter sig. Gga And in the Accounts of Magdalen College in Oxford there is yearly an Allowance pro Mulieribus Hockantibus, in some Manors of theirs in Hampshire, where the Men hock the Women on Monday, and econtra on Tuesday. 1825 T. D. Fosbroke Encycl. Antiq. II. xiii. 576 On Monday and Tuesday men and women reciprocally hocked each other, i.e. stopped the way with ropes, and pulled the passengers towards them, desiring a donation.
[5] blackmail: Post-classical Latin reditus nigri , redditus nigri (plural) appears to have been invented by Coke after redditus albi white rent (see quot. 1642). He seems to have interpreted white rent as all rent paid in money, and to have invented a contrasting category for rent paid in kind. [1774 D. Hume Let. 4 June in Edinb. Mag. (1817) Aug. 10/1 I hope all his spleen is not exhausted. I should desire my compliments to him, were I not afraid that he would interpret the civility as paying black maill to him... [Note] This was a sort of tax paid to freebooters, to obtain exemption from their inroads.]
[6] huck: a. intransitive. To higgle in trading; to haggle over a bargain; to chaffer, bargain. Also figurative. To haggle over terms, to stickle. 14.. in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 566/36 Auccionor, to hukke.1468 Medulla in Promptorium Parvulorum 252 (note) Auccionor, to merchaunt, and huk. a1529 J. Skelton Poems Now adayes as hucksters they hucke and they styck.
PS: [The Latin huc is an adverb: hūc: (adv.), to this place; hither, here, cf huc et illuc]
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