A "gouge"?

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Fri Jun 9 16:11:34 UTC 2006


Someone on another list wrote:
>I regularly handle editions of a similar test preparation gouge.  My
>treatment consists almost completely of *pairs* of locators -- for
>each particular point, the page on which the question is posed and
>the page on which the answer is discussed. ...
>
>    Are books like this called "gouges"?  I don't know where I
> dredged up that term.

Does this sense derive from "gouge, v.", one sense of which is "To
cheat, impose upon".  One sense of "gouge, n.", is "A cheat,
swindle".  The questions are perhaps taken directly from the test,
and the answers "cheat" the test.

Joel

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