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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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goon::thug
It's common lingo over here to refer to the union goons during a strike, the professional thugs the union hires and sends in to raise hell, incite civil disobedience among the strikers, and, when "necessary", to beat the heads in of scabs and strikebreakers. Or we might say "Don't cross that picket line, or the union will send in the goons."
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Goon squad" is another use that I have seen (and like), referring to a group of hired muscle, typically of low intellectual ability.
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veteran
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veteran
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another theory (proposed by Hugh Rawson in his excellent book "Wicked Words") traces it to the Hindi word "gunda," meaning "hired tough," apparently often spelled "goondah" in British newspapers of the 1920s.
That would appear to answer your question, Bean, if you accept that "goon" in the thug sense is a post-1920ish term.
Of course both theories could be right. "Goon" as idiot may have been derived from English dialect, and then it combined nicely with the Hindi word for hired tough some time around the 1920s. That would mean the English goon is a more disparaging term than the Hindi gunda. A gunda would always inspire fear, whereas a goon would at least occasionally inspire ridicule.
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old hand
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OP
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That would appear to answer your question, Bean, if you accept that "goon" in the thug sense is a post-1920ish term.
Yes, I was interested in finding out when that meaning first arose. That's why I posted here, hoping someone with OED access would be able to find that out for me...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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there doesn't seem to be a clear connection between goon and the Hindi gunda. the thug sense originated in the U.S. in the Pacific Northwest around 1938; gunda predates it by ~10 years. the OED says this about goon, "Perhaps a shortened form of dial. gooney (GONY 1) ‘a booby, a simpleton’; but more immediately from the name of a subhuman creature called Alice the Goon in a popular cartoon series by E. C. Segar (1894-1938), American cartoonist."
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addict
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addict
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vig = vigorish- ... winnings or profits.. used in US since 1912 to mean interest charged by loan shark)
...and generally usurious interest at that, I should think
...and which they vigorishly obtain.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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i don't know... from Bean (above) The use of "goon" to mean "hired thug" probably derived from this "idiot" sense, but another theory (proposed by Hugh Rawson in his excellent book "Wicked Words") traces it to the Hindi word "gunda," meaning "hired tough," apparently often spelled "goondah" in British newspapers of the 1920s.
given that a word often is in use for 10 to 20 years before it makes it into print.. and sometimes longer..
it could have come from India, via sailors, and slowly worked its way into common speech, and finally into print..
it might have even influenced the naming of Alice the goon, who as i recall, was big, pin headed and as strong as an ox-- Popeye never wanted to hit a woman, but didn't Alice the goon temp him to do so?
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old hand
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OP
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it might have even influenced the naming of Alice the goon
Yes, that's what I'd been thinking of when I posted this...sometimes a word from language B which sounds similar to a word from language A can influence the meaning of that word in language A, and I was wondering if that's what happened here. Maybe I should ask Quinion if he thinks there's anything to the Hugh Rawson theory (which I quite like, myself). Would that be blasphemous? He has way more resources at his disposal than we do.
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