Whats the origin of the phrase “HUNKY-DORY”?
Skeeter.mouse wants to know where the phrase “hunky-dory” comes from. Jeez, Im turning into a word detective, here! Thank goodness for the reliable William and Mary Morris. In their Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, they offer three theories. One has it that American sailors on shore leave in Yokahama, Japan visited a street named Huncho-dori, where they could get slammed in the proud Naval tradition. Apparently, Huncho-dori led directly to the docks, so the seabees knew that, no matter how bibulous they became, it was a beeline back to their ships. Therefore, the story goes, once you were on Huncho-dori, everything was hunky-dory! Theory number two identifies a sung sung by the Christy Minstrels during the Civil War, called “Josephus Orange Blossom”, and containing the line “red hot hunky-dory contraband”. The tune was a big hit and the phrase became part of the popular slang of the period. The tricky part in picking between these two theories is the dates involved. The American
