It's a hoot!

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

Ron writes:

>>>>>
In a message dated 3/2/2000 10:06:47 AM, bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes:
 << Beverly Flanigan wrote:
  > My southern Ohio students think my Minnesota /o/ is a hoot [...]
  ...now there's an Athens & surrounding region form: "it's a hoot!"  DARE gives
  hoot2 as related to Hutterites...does this generalized use of the term have
  more than regional use?
 >>

I first heard this in the 1970s. I assumed it was gay male slang, though
maybe it was just a southernism. The guy I heard it from was both.
<<<<<

I use this expression regularly, meaning "That's really funny!". I think I
picked it up from my wife. We both grew up in NYC in the late fifties and early
sixties. She grew up in the East Village and is more likely to have picked up
expressions influenced directly or indirectly by gay men's usage than I, growing
up on the Upper West Side (and in the social community I lived in).

OTOH, we both went to college at CCNY (late sixties - early seventies) and
graduate school at UC Berkeley (mid/late seventies), so we might have picked it
up there.

   Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist and Manager of Acoustic Data
         Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Dragon Systems, Inc.
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com

"Someone's sent out the New Australian Grammar to Malaya nearly a
 century before it was invented, and I'm going to be all day
 sorting it out."     -- Diana Wynne Jones, _A Tale of Time City_