It seems that "chunked" is in common use.

Here are a few examples culled from North Carolina newspapers in recent years of the verb "to chunk" being used instead of "to chuck" (as used by former Gov. Mike Easley and President George W. Bush):

* Food correspondent Debbie Moose, in a March 23, 2008, article about Duke mayonnaise: "And she chunked another jar of Big D into our cart."

* Charlotte Observer sports writer Ron Green Jr. writing about Padraig Harrington at the British Open on July 23, 2007: "When Harrington chunked his 229-yard third shot into the water, visions of Van de Velde danced in every head."

* Winston-Salem Journal writer Lenox Rawlings writing about football on Jan. 9, 2006: "The Carolina Panthers, striving for legendary status as the NFL's ultimate playoff road team, read that conventional scouting report and chunked it into the Hudson River yesterday."

* Durham Herald-Sun columnist Jason Hawkins discussing a fishing trip on Aug. 3, 2003: "He said, something was wrong with the cantaloupe, and he chunked his half overboard."

The word seems to be mostly used in the context of golf, but other sports writers use it a lot as well. That could be because sports writers use a more colloquial voice or possibly because more of them are Southerners.

Another Southerner is defending "chunk."

"You folks from Charlotte need to come to eastern North Carolina more often," writes reader Artemis Kares. "Chunk can be and is used to mean throw."

Kares cited the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, which dates the term to 1825-35.

— verb (used with object) South Midland and Southern U.S.
1. to toss or throw; chuck: chunking pebbles at the barn door.
2. to make or rekindle (a fire) by adding wood, coal, etc., or by stoking (sometimes followed by up).

The dictionary adds that it is perhaps a "nasalized" variant of "to chuck."

As a side note, the Seattle-bred Domester would find it easier to avoid mocking this particular Southernism if it weren't defined by such Snuffy Smith-worthy examples as "chunking pebbles at the barn door." 

A Southerner is defending "chunking" it.

Reader Bruce Sharer writes that Southerners often use the verb "to chunk" as a variant of "to chuck," meaning to discard or toss.

Dome had wondered why former Gov. Mike Easley and President George W. Bush both used the word instead of the more familiar "chucked."

But Sharer says it's no big deal, citing as authority the Urban Dictionary, a collaborative online dictionary of slang that frequently verges on offensive: "Southern for chuck it. 1. To discard. 2. To toss."

"Perhaps you are not from down here, i.e., the South," Sharer writes, unintentionally echoing every Southern TV or movie sheriff from the past 40 years. "Number two may explain why Gov. Easley and Pres. Bush used the word chunk."

In fairness, Dome hisself is not from the South, but our more Southern-fried colleagues also thought the word strange.

Carl Mumpower says he is a true conservative.

In an interview with the Smoky Mountain News, the Asheville City Councilman says he would try to shrink the federal debt, target companies that employ illegal immigrants, reduce government's role in health care and help constituents navigate the federal government.

"Basically, Washington operates as a rigged lottery, almost without exception. It caters to special interests that betray the common interest," he said.

Earlier this month, Mumpower announced he would run for the Republican nomination to take on U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler.

In an aside, he also coined a word. He said he supports building the "road to nowhere" through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which Shuler opposed.

"I do not believe that the passage of time, pressure from envirojackers, or indulgence of Tennessee special interests is a foundation for violating our word," he told the paper.

Dome could not find any previously published news articles, Web sites or blogs with the word "envirojacker," but we assume its a portmanteau of "environment" and "hijacker."

The first known reference to a "catfish amendment" is from 1957.

As Dome speculated earlier, a minimum wage bill in that year's legislative session may have helped popularize the phrase. We've now tracked down that story.

In an unsigned article in the N&O on April 17, Lumberton Sen. Cutlar Moore is quoted complaining about changes made to a bill to boost the minimum wage to 75 cents an hour.

There was a fisherman, he said, who was having difficulty skinning a catfish which squirmed frantically under the knife.

"Finally," Moore said, "this fellow said, 'Hold still little catfish. All I'm going to do is gut you.'"

The amendments exempted hotel and laundry workers, firms with fewer than five employees, children under 18 and those who work fewer than 18 hours a week. They "chopped the bill down to a mere shell of its former self," the article notes.

It's possible that the phrase "catfish amendment" was already in use by then, and the joke was certainly not original. But the high profile of the minimum wage bill and the numerous amendments make it a plausible candidate.

The full text of the 1957 article after the jump.

   Comments (0)

The use of the term "catfish amendment" can be traced back further.

Roy Parker Jr., a former political reporter for the N&O in the 1950s and '60s, credits former state Sen. Cutlar Moore with popularizing, if not coining, the phrase in North Carolina.

Parker said the Lumberton Democrat, who served in the Senate during that era, proposed a bill regulating the insurance industry. Other legislators then sought to kill it with seemingly friendly amendments.

He said Moore explained the term as "gutting" the bill.

"He’d say, 'They tell us this amendment won't do much, but I feel like it may be a catfish amendment,'" Parker recalled. "I can see him standing up there now saying, 'Don’t worry, little catfish, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to gut you."

That appears to be a common Southern joke, however.

More after the jump.

   Comments (2)

Another citation for "catfish amendment" has come up, but it doesn't clarify things.

The phrase appears in a book on the 1994 Republican Revolution. In "Conservative Reformers," author Nicol Rae quotes U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a former state representative, on the differences between the legislature and Congress:

Parliamentary procedure was different in the state legislature. I came from a system where you could write an amendment at your desk and submit it on the floor — a "catfish" amendment. Here you have to prefile your amendment. It's more formal.

That doesn't match the definition we've been using of an amendment designed to sink a bill by stealth. But it does sound like the way most "catfish amendments" are submitted — on the floor, at the last minute.

We're going to chalk that up to a misunderstanding of the term by Jones.

Scott Mooneyham offers yet another explanation for "catfish amendment."

In an e-mail to Dome, The Insider reporter writes that catfish tend to head to the bottom when they're hooked:

Anyone who fishes for them knows that they grab a bait, and hug the bottom and roll, as opposed to other fish that often run to the surface and jump. Only speculation, but I suspect plenty of rural legislators from the 60s and 70s had caught plenty of catfish on rod and reel and understood this tendency. Hence, to "catfish a bill" is to grab it and load it up with something that sends it to the bottom.

N&O outdoors editor Mike Zlotnicki confirmed this description, saying catfish tend to "bulldog down" and hold to the bottom of a river when caught.

Three state political reporters confirm that "catfish amendment" dates at least to the 1970s.

None of them knows for sure where it comes from, either.

Earlier, Dome explored the possible derivations of the phrase, which refers to a seemingly friendly amendment designed to kill a bill.

Ferrell Guillory, who covered the legislature from 1973 to 1977, recalls hearing it then. He favors the "sinking into the muck" explanation.

"A catfish is a bottom feeder," he said. "They're kind of ugly and they sit at the bottom and feed on the trash."

More after the jump.

   Comments (1)