shucked a helluva lot of bunnies to correct that jaw of yours

[GoodTaste]

Does "shucked a helluva lot of bunnies to correct that jaw of yours" mean "spent lots of money to correct your jaw (it is apparently a medical operation)"?

The phrase sounds odd. It seems to a regional English somewhere in the US.
===================
"Think of how gorgeous we're going to be when we wake up."
"Mom, it's me doing this, not you."
"Susan Colgate, I shucked a helluva lot of bunnies to correct that jaw of yours, and now it is not time to be ungrateful about it. Now hold on to my figure and count back from one hundred."

Source: Miss Myoming by Douglas Coupland Chapter Ten

 

[SoothingDave]

What does this person do for a living? Perhaps they raise rabbits.

 

[GoodTaste]

What does this person do for a living? Perhaps they raise rabbits.

I just took a glance at the novel, not sure of the speaker's occupation. It is said that regional English is not a good material to learn English.

 

[Skrej]

Source: Miss Myoming by Douglas Coupland Chapter Ten

You very carelessly made an error in your source. That is not the name of the novel.

 

[SoothingDave]

It's not a figurative expression that I have ever heard of. I would take it literally.

 

[Skrej]

The answer is in the text of the book. If you'll correct your error, I'll point you towards the answer.

 

[GoodTaste]

You very carelessly made an error in your source. That is not the name of the novel.

Take a look at the cover of the novel. It appears I've made no error:

 

[GoesStation]

Take a look at the cover of the novel. It appears I've made no error:

View attachment 3642

Look again.

 

[GoodTaste]

Look again.

The title of the novel: Miss Wyoming
Author: Douglas Coupland

The text is picked up from Chapter Ten

 

[Skrej]

To find the answer, you need to read further back in the book.

Glean through these excerpts.

 

[Tdol]

Could it mean that the mother had to do a lot of work to earn the money to pay for the operation?

 

[GoodTaste]

I wonder how to use the word "shuck":

(1) Son, do you know how many sheep I've shucked to pay your college tuition and fees? Study hard and play your smartphone less, don't let me down.

(2) The ox was too old to labour in the field. The villiagers decided to shuck it to share its meat. The ox knew its doomsday came and, with tears in its eyes, knelt down to beg for mercy, only to no avail, because the villagers were so poor and couldn't afford to let the hard-working animal die naturally and be buried honorably.

Do you think I've used "shuck" correctly here?

 

[Rover_KE]

As 'shuck' means 'to remove the outer covering of something' (Collins) — more specifically of corncobs and oysters, in the OP she probably means she's skinned a lot of rabbits.

For sheep, use 'sheared'. For the ox, use 'slaughter'.

 

[GoodTaste]

But " skinned a lot of rabbits" literally means "killed a lot of rabbits".

"Shear" means differently. There I meant it to be "kill the sheep so that both sheepskin and mutton can be traded for money". (Sheep meat is expensive in China)

 

[GoodTaste]

Where did you come across that? If you skin a rabbit, you remove the skin. The rabbit is already dead.

Yes. Whatever you must kill the rabbits. I used "shuck" this way in the sentences I made.

 

[jutfrank]

Could it mean that the mother had to do a lot of work to earn the money to pay for the operation?

Yes, that seems to be basically what she means. God knows why she used 'shucked bunnies'.

Related side note: Last weekend my friend and I were preparing a garden party for which we had to shuck 48 delicious Irish rock oysters. During our task, we wondered whether it was possible to 'shuck' anything other than oysters. We came up with a few other bivalves as potential candidates. Needless to say, we didn't consider rabbits.

 

[GoodTaste]

Preliminary conclusion: Better not to use the regional English phrase.

 

[jutfrank]

Preliminary conclusion: Better not to use the regional English phrase.

Conclusion based on what?

I don't think any of us said that this was regional usage. What makes you think it is?

 

[GoodTaste]

Conclusion based on what?

I don't think any of us said that this was regional usage. What makes you think it is?

See posts #17 of yours and #18 of Piscean's.


You shucked oysters and Piscean shucked beans. Rabbits refuse to be shucked.

 

[jutfrank]

See posts #17 of yours and #18 of Piscean's.

I don't understand. What do you mean by "regional English phrase"?

Neither Piscean nor I mentioned anything about regional usage.