hoots and hooters

[Laurence Horn]

Beverly Flanigan writes:
>Following up on my own initiative:  I also used to use "hoot" in another
>sense:  "I don't give a hoot" -- which meant "I couldn't care less," "I
>don't give a damn."    ("Hoot" would be stressed.)  Is this familiar to
>others?  It doesn't seem to be related to laughter, unless by a long
>stretch.  In fact, my mother used it the most in our family, and she was of
>Norwegian descent, which makes me wonder about the alleged Scandinavian
>cognate someone mentioned.  Said with her usual Norse-derived stress and
>intonation patterns, the word would sound like a possible cognate
>borrowing.  Vicki, I don't have DARE handy; what's the 'hoot2' meaning you
>referred to?
>
the hoot 2 of "(not) give a hoot" is what Bolinger calls a minimizer, an
expression of minimal quantity standardly used in negative (and related)
contexts (sleep a wink, drink a drop, care a fig,...) "as a partially
stereotyped equivalent of 'any'", and the OED suggests that it may or may
not be distinct from hoot 1 (the onomatopoeic expression related to what
the owl emits and what makes us laugh), while recalling the older minimizer
"hooter".  (In my own usage, active and passive, the minimizing 'hoot' need
not be stressed:  "I don't GIVE a hoot what you think", etc.
========================
hoot sb.2 colloq. (orig. U.S.). [Perhaps the same as hoot sb.1 or int. Cf.
hooter2. ] The smallest amount or particle; a whit or
atom. Chiefly with negative and in phrases 'to give (care, matter) two
hoots (a hoot)':

       1878 J. H. Beadle Western Wilds xxxviii. 615, I got onto my reaper
and banged down every hoot of it before Monday night.

       1923 R. D. Paine Comr. Rolling Ocean xii. 214, I am glad of that
even if he did tell me that as a supercargo I wasn't worth a hoot in
       hades.

       1925 N. Venner Imperfect Imposter iv, I can't see this place gives a
hoot whether I'm here or not.

       1925 Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 120 I don't care two
hoots in hell.

       1926 A. P. Herbert She-Shanties 36 We did not care a hoot.

       1926 T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars (1935) vi. lxxx. 447 Not that my
maimed will now cared a hoot about the Arab Revolt.

       1927 Observer 9 Oct. 13 It doesn't matter two hoots how much Oxford
is filmed.

       1939 Joyce Finnegans Wake 351, I did not care three tanker's
hoots..for any feelings.

[note the relation between Joyce's 'tanker's hoots' and the more frequent
'tinker's dams' --LH]

       1943 K. Tennant Ride on Stranger xix. 214, I don't see that it
matters two hoots in hell if you don't function.

       1947 O. Sitwell Novels of G. Meredith 4 The human being who is not
worth a tinker's cuss,-or, in a more elegant simile, two
       hoots-does not exist.

       1957 A. Grimble Return to Islands iv. 78 Not that they gave a hoot
for what I might say.

       1963 V. Nabokov Gift iv. 235 He most definitely did not give a hoot
for the opinions of specialists.

       1966 Listener 27 Oct. 613/1 Winston Churchill was idiosyncratic in
that he did not care a hoot about being thought a gentleman.
==============================
Hooter2. U.S. colloq. = hoot sb.2

       1839 Havana (N.Y.) Republican 21 Aug. (Th.), Now the Grampus [sc. a
vessel] stopt, and didn't buge [= budge] one hooter.

       1889 Commercial (Cincinnati) 17 Oct., It has not harmed the
Republican cause in Ohio a hooter.

       1896 Harper's Mag. XCII. 784/1 Now I can have all I want, I don't
care a hooter!

       1900 E. A. Dix Deacon Bradbury xii, `Do you mean that you don't know
anything about the matter at all?'..`Not a hooter.'
============================
I don't believe this is what the Hooters restaurant chain alludes to.

larry