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.
Skunks are wonderful :3
As a representative of another underappreciated animal, the noble fruit bat, I am bumping this post to the top ^w^
🦇🤝🦨
We noble but underappreciated mammals must recognize our intersectionality and unite to support one another with mutual solidarity.