Origin of "hoopie"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Fri Apr 18 17:45:26 UTC 2008


The band took its name from the 1966 novel by Willard Manus.

  Maj. Hoople was the only person I ever saw who wore a fez.  Except for Laurel & Hardy in "Sons of the Desert."  And Akbar & Jeff.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Origin of "hoopie"
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There was Major Hoople, a chracter in the cartoon, Our Boarding House.
More recently, there was the band, Mott The Hoople.

-Wilson

On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 11:09 AM, Jonathan Lighter
wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: Origin of "hoopie"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> FWIW, Lee Pederson in _American Speech_ 1980 reported "hoople" [sic] as a synonym for "hayseed...hick..hillbilly...yokel [etc.]." Evidently a typo, though "hoople" has seen some use in the sense of "lunkhead."
>
> "Hoopie" is in DARE. T.H. White thought in 1965 it referred to all West Virginians, and a recent ref. at Google Books specifies that "hoopies" are from "the southern part" of WV.
>
>
>
> JL
>
> Patti Kurtz wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Patti Kurtz
> Subject: Origin of "hoopie"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi everyone. A student in my composition class asked me "what's the origin
> of the term "hoopie" (slang for someone from WV?" I didn't know (but I
> recall using this politically incorrect term as a college student in SW PA),
> so I got curious and thought I'd ask here. I did a little googling and
> found a suggestion that it comes from "hooper" (one who fits hoops around
> barrels) because of the fact that people from the hills would come into
> town to buy hoops for their barrels (presumably for moonshine, maybe?) is
> this accurate? I checked my "shorter" OED (sorry, it's all I have
> available) and found no entry on "hoopie."
>
> This is for my curiosity, not for the student's research or anything-- it
> was just a discussion question he raised and it rang a bell with me because
> of my experience with the term.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Patti Kurtz
> Minot State University
>
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come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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