Honda

This word will throw you for a loop

Today’s New York Times Spelling Bee letters:

A, B, D, H, K, O, and center N (all words must include N).

Merriam-Webster says…

Silly little dictionary! Don’t you know honda can’t possibly be a word if the New York Times says it ain’t?

For further fascinating facts, check out the Spelling Bee Master.

What’s your favorite dord* from today’s puzzle?

My Two Cents

Pop quiz! Which of these is a honda?

If you figured the only reason I’m asking is because it’s a trick question and they all are hondas… you’ve made me proud, dear reader.

The vehicle on the left is the T360, the pickup truck introduced in 1963 as Honda’s first foray into the automobile industry. Before that year, the company founded by Soichiro Honda had been known mainly for its motorcycles. Today, Honda is the number one manufacturer of motorized two-wheelers and internal combustion engines, as well.

In the center left is a honda loop, also called a lariat loop. Some people make a distinction between the two, as the latter does not slip from the running end.

The third image is of Piston Honda. If you ever played Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, the famous 1987 Nintendo game, then you know who he is. And if you’ve never even heard of the game, I’ll explain: Piston Honda was a character in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, the famous 1987 Nintendo game. The pixelated boxer’s last name was changed to Hondo in subsequent versions, probably for legal reasons.

Finally, on the far right is a Spanish honda. Or rather, a slingshot in Spanish. Honda is the word Spanish speakers use to refer to that diabolical children’s toy made infamous by Dennis the Menace. (Yeah, I know, I’m old… don’t rub it in.)

Fasten your seat belts, readers, today we’re having a threesome! And when a logophile like me says threesome, you can bet something exciting will happen… in three languages.

日本語で

The above means “in Japanese”. (Or so I hope. If it doesn’t, please let me know and I’ll fix it.)

From what I was able to surmise, the name Honda is written 本田 in Japanese, and means, literally, “root ricefield”, or “original rice paddy”. It’s most common use is as a surname:

• The aforementioned Soichiro Honda, founder of that international conglomerate of motorcycles and cars
• A. Honda, one of the two female manga artists that publish jointly under the pen name Akira Himekawa
• Toshiyuki Honda, a Japanese jazz musician and composer
• Taira Honda, a Japanese mathematician who proved a theory now conveniently named after him and another maths guy, John Tate.
• Gene Honda, public address announcer of the Chicago White Sox

And, finally, Tadakatsu Honda, as samurai general who lived from 1548 to 1610. I’m including him because… c’mon, he’s a samurai! And because I thought the illustration I found of him was pretty groovy:

En español

For those who don’t speak Spanish, the first definition explains that a honda is “a leather strap or thread made of wool, hemp, straw, or other similar materials, used to throw rocks violently.” Note the pointed use of the term “violently”. The Spanish Royal Academy of Language doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to its dictionary. It took forever to convince them to tag as offensive one of their definitions of “Jew” which was listed as “miser or loan shark”.

So a honda is what David used to slay Goliath. Hmm, maybe Goliath was a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language, and that’s why they added that definition to “Jew”.

A honda is also used in some Spanish-speaking countries as a synonym for slingshot (like the one pictured earlier). Two other synonyms for slingshot are tirachinas and china, which sounds bigoted until you look it up and discover that china does not mean “Chinese woman” but instead refers in an onomatopoetic way to the small stones thrown using a slingshot… violently.

As a side note, honda is the female adjective equivalent of “deep” in English, used mostly to describe things, though, not people.

English, please

Obviously the Spelling Bee can’t include Honda the surname or honda the Spanish slingshot.

What about honda the knot or the metallic eye at the end of a lariat? The latter is the definition we started with, per Merriam-Webster. I mean, it’s not like hondas aren’t being used anymore. There are still cowboys around. Rodeos are still a thing. And, despite the poor quality of the second one, there will be another Wonder Woman movie. She has a lasso. Surely she’ll need a honda. Right?

It’s an obscure word, you claim. Well, do you know what a nabob is? What about a khan? (No, not the Star Trek villain!) Both of these words are pretty obscure, and yet they appear in the official list of accepted answers.

So why not honda? Honda the hell knows, anyway…

But the editors of the Spelling Bee took one look at that useful term and decided that it was a dord.*

For being such good readers and getting all the way to the end, here are the instructions for tying a honda knot, with video included, courtesy of 101knots.com

Please check out my previous entry on another dord*:

*What the heck is a dord, anyway? Here you go: