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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by pissfox@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

skunk(n.) common weasel-like mammal of North America that emits a fetid odor when threatened, 1630s, squunck, from a southern New England Algonquian language (perhaps Massachusett) word, from Proto-Algonquian */šeka:kwa/, from */šek-/ "to urinate" + */-a:kw/ "fox" [Bright]. — EtymOnline

The connection between Hexbear and skunks has been underappreciated until recently. Skunks are cute and cuddly when you get to know them, but they stink terribly if you don’t respect them. Many people, shitheads by habit, never learn this distinction.

Eighteenth-century Jesuit missionary Martin Dobrizhoffer, who tangled with one, wrote, "Had I a hundred tongues I should think them all insufficient to convey an adequate idea of the stench" and concluded that "Europe may be congratulated upon her good fortune in being unacquainted with this cursed beast" ["An Account of the Abipones," as translated from the Latin by Sara Coleridge, the poet's daughter]. — EtymOnline

The name skunk is historically borrowed as a term of slander; unjustly so, I emphasize, as skunks are awesome.

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[-] hotcouchguy@hexbear.net 21 points 2 days ago

skunks seem to know that nobody really wants to fuck with a skunk, so they kind of have immunity from humans and most other animals.

except for dogs, somehow dogs did not get the memo and always have to learn the hard way.

[-] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You would think that dogs, being essentially a walking nose, would learn the lesson quicker than anyone

[-] Robert_Kennedy_Jr@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago

They don't actually smell bad until they let it rip, I've encountered the skunk that sprayed my dog a few times out in the neighborhood at night and there wasn't any tell tale odor.

[-] Robert_Kennedy_Jr@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago

My dog got sprayed by I assume the same skunk twice in a month, she doesn't get to go outside at night without a leash now.

[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago

Skunks are quite smelly but my dog went and got hosed by some kind of weasel thing that made her smell like garlicked hell

Eye watering just like a skunk but a whole different genre of stink

Goddamned dogs are so lovably stupid

this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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