Chrysti The Wordsmith: Chinook - 2

Greetings This is Christie the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman. Chinook jargon is a trade language developed among natives of the Pacific Northwest consisting of some 500 to a thousand words drawn from several native languages of the area so not jargon facilitated commerce in food and goods between the inhabitants of this linguistically diverse region. One lexical survivor of this trade language is the expression high muck a muck or mucky muck which is the jargon derived way of referring to one of elevated professional or social status. Originally the Chinook jargon word muck a muck meant depending on the context. Choice whale meat a meal food or to eat or feast. When the Chinook jargon adjective Hi you meaning big or important was attached. The resulting high you muck a muck meant plenty of food. Big feast. The kind of spread enjoyed and offered by the wealthy. English speakers adopting and adapting this phrase rendered it Hari muck a muck figuratively someone who eats well

but by extension the wealthy the powerful one the boss the Oxford English Dictionary cites the printed expression from 1856 in the Democratic State Journal of Sacramento. In current American English the term high or muckety muck is contemptuous and generally reserved for political or corporate big shots with an inflated sense of power and influence. I'm Christie the wordsmith. Good day verb of course Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.