REVIVING OLD, NON-DIGITAL, MEANINGS FOR THE NOW–PARTLY–CYBER-“WORLD” WORD,
 “HACK”
Michael Sean Quinn*

Not exactly. But close. The problem is that the word “hack” has at least five meanings. Some are related, but not all of them.

One of them is a verb that means something like “chop.”  As in, he hacked away at that tree trunk for hours and still didn’t—or couldn’t–cut it down. (Of course there are metaphorical extensions, like “He hacked away at his calculus homework most of the night.”)

A second one is noun and it is used to refer to persons who aren’t very good, or are on the borderline between below average and quite awful at whatever topic is under discussion. For example, the man who couldn’t cut the tree down, a topic just mentioned might well be a hack—the language seems to open the possibility– though there is no implication in the words themselves that suggest that the fellow who didn’t cut it down was a hack.

A third use for the term “hack” refers to being angry, usually at someone, not just in abstracto. When anger rises to the level of rage, I think it is not usually called being “hacked off.” Being hacked-off seems to be a less passionate condition.

The fourth and contemporary use of the word is both as a noun and as a verb. It refers to nefarious computer activities, to wit, cyber invasion. Thus, one can hack one’s way into a computer and thereby be a hacker, “hackor” (to use a possible locution from “legalese”), one who hacks, or maybe, as slang, simply a hack.

 Naturally, one who hacks into computers might well not be very good at it; such a person might be able to get into very simple ones but not the “real” targets—the one with “real” money in them, as it were. This person would be a hack hacker. Naturally, such a person might be attached with a knife and cut up a bit (or seriously) in which case we would have a hack hacker having been hacked, or a hacked hack hacker. (Of course, if the person who hacks up the hack hacker might be good, average, or bad at what he is doing.  If he is aweful at it, he would unquestionably be a hack hacker of hackers, or even a hack hacker of hack hacker. And so on.)

And now for a fifth meaning. Naturally, a “4h” person could end up being hacked off, if he thought the poor evaluation of him was false or malicious—something the rating could be, even it were true. The word “off” often goes with the word “hacked” in this usage, but not necessarily and not always. If this is true, then we would have a hacked hack hacker hacked.

At least one of these terms applies to what happened to a divorce lawyer in New England the other day. It arose out of a divorce case. L represented W, and H somehow became enraged—something that is also called “hacked off.” He attacked L in a parking garage, sprayed him with insect killer and used a hatchet on him.  L sustained 30+ stitches. Thus, L was hacked with a hatchet by H, who obviously was a hacker—indeed, the hacker here–and who was clearly hacked off.  (There was even a second witness to prove it, I gather.)

There is, of course, a remaining question, namely, whether H was a hack at hacking with a hatchet. After all, the target L was not killed. Now, part of this may result from L’s clever move. Though perhaps, hapless, to a degree, L never  helpless. Apparently, the hatchet slipped out of the hacker’s hands and L—whose first name for all I know was Harold—rolled over on it making it very, very hard for H to grab it again and use it some more.  Still, H let the handle of the hatchet slip from his hands, and that’s hackery by perpetrator in an attempted homicide, if ever I’ve heard it. 

I would certainly not conjecture the emotion condition of L when he appeared at the sentencing hearing of H—9 years was what he got—and my sources mentioning nothing about this. I myself would expect him to be a lot more than huffy. I fact I doubt than any of the trilogy—L, W, and (ex?) H—were all or at all happy.

There is an interesting sociological question regarding the legal profession buried in all this—the answer to which that would be helpful to know. To be sure, violent assaults on divorce lawyers are rare and actual murders are even more rare. But,  is the violent crime rate against Ls higher in or somehow near divorce cases—than others?  After all, divorce litigation is a kind of hell for many, sometimes even for the attorneys for the litigants.

My impression is that the rate is higher, but my impression is just that and nothing more. As a sociologist at this point in my life, I might be nothing but a hideous hack and I should not be hacking away at trying to construct an answer. I am not doubt an expert on some things, but this is not one of them.

 At the same time, however, I am inclined to hypothesize that L was not a mere hack at lawyering, although he may not have been so good at empathy or human relations—something nowadays said to be a professional, as well as moral, virtue.