hoots and hooters

[Dennis R. Preston]

I don't want to muddy the "hoot" waters here, but my use of "hoot"
(laughter, fun) not hoot (in not to give one) goes more in the direction of
party, fun, good time than laughter. I bet dollars to donuts that it was
influenced by the word "hootenanny," appartently originally one of a number
of "thingamagig" words but later used to mean a meeting of folksingers for
perforamance (whether public or not). Since these gatherings were
associated with "having fun" (difficult for me to understand because of the
music itself, but that is personal) this "fun" sense became the strongest
one for me and I betcha for others.

dInIs (who would be more likely to say that a party or vacation or other
"enjoyable event" was a "hoot" than he would that a joke or comic event was
one)

  >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


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736