Talk:honcho

Squad leader? The only Japanese honchos in my dictionary are 本庁, "central government office" and 本朝 "this land, our country; Imperial Court". --Vladisdead 09:43, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nevermind - its not honchō but hanchō. Damn American vowels. :) --Vladisdead 09:44, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

also a verb

I have seen honcho also used as a verb as in "Joe will honcho this project"

This issue of the correct translation of the Japanese word should probably be viewed in the WW II era inwhich this word entered the English language, not contemporary use of Japanese. I believe that the original use was a squad lead in the Japanese military and GI's encountered this use and then anglicized it.