It's a hoot!

[Alice Faber]

>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.

"It's a hoot", in the funny sense, is something I've always used. I
associate it more with my mother than my father. In any case, both
parents grew up in New York suburbs, and both lived in Manhattan in
the late 1940s. They were both journalists, and had friends involved
with the radical press. I've never had anyone appear puzzled when I
used the expression; in contrast, when I moved to Texas for grad
school, it I talked about "waiting on line", it was a real
conversation stopper.

Alice Faber