Combination of Words

Driving to church on Sunday morning, I was intrigued by what was written on back of the vehicle in front of me: “LOYALTY, HUSTLE & RESPECT”. The first and last words I understood, but ‘hustle’? How do these three go together? Loyalty and Respect are good values to live by, but hustle has lots of negative connotations. The online Merriam Webster dictionary has the following definitions:-

Transitive verb

1.

a. Jostle, Shove

b. To convey forcibly or hurriedly

c. To urge forward precipitately

2.

a. To obtain by energetic activity

b. To sell something to or obtain something from, by energetic and especially underhanded activity

c. To sell or promote energetically and aggressively

d. To lure less skillful players into competing against oneself at a gambling game

Intransitive verb

1. Show, Press

2. Hasten, Hurry

3.
a. To make strenuous efforts to obtain especially money or business

b. To obtain money by fraud or deception

c. To engage in prostitution

4. To play a game or sport in an alert, aggressive manner

Apart from the fact that this is evidence that working with a bunch of linguists for over 10 years has had a lasting effect on my view of words and readiness to discuss meanings (!), I still don’t know what they were trying to say. Any suggestions / insights welcome!

However, it struck me as funny, and perhaps an indication of what becomes ‘normal’,  that it was only afterwards that I noticed that the 2 guys in the back of the truck were in fact sitting, very comfortably it seemed, in armchairs!