In the book I'm reading right now - my third novel by Rohinton Mistry in the last few months - there's an interesting intermingling of English and, presumably, Hindi, as the books all take place in India. The word they use for goon, in the sense of "an enforcer, a thug, sent to deter troublemakers", is goonda. I looked up goon in my dictionary and it more or less waffled, gave some excuse about some radio show (name escapes me at the moment), but didn't seem very certain. Is the similarity in the sound of the word, with the same definition, just coincidence, or did one come from the other? And if they are related, who stole the word from whom? Anyone with an OED or some working knowledge of India, please help me...it's been bugging me since I looked it up in the dictionary last night and got this silly excuse for an etymology.

And when did the word first come into use? This book is set in the mid-1970s.

Without looking it up - there is also a connotation of goon as embodying silliness, perhaps even innocence, as well as largeness, stupidity, obedience, awkwardness, and such thuggish attributes. Gooniness must precede your book by decades. I recall also an aircraft affectionately known as the "Goony Bird," putting it at least 60 years ago, and the term must have antedated that, too.

"Thug" is another word with a nice pedigree, by the way.

In cartoons in the thirties ;Otto Soglow had Popeye, Sea Hag, Alice the Goon. I think she was
a very dull sort of subhuman. The latter part got extended in slang to mean
a stupid underworld type.

Yes, goons can be a stupid, dull underworld type person, (and i think of the kids movie The Goonies, but goons can be low life thugs..
I. E., "He couldn't pay the loan shark the vig, and a couple of goons worked him over, to send him a message"
Goons, in this case would be similar to thugs or strong arm men... they might not be the brightest bulbs, they are better known for their muscles, rather than for being stupid.

(*vig= vigorish- perhaps from the russian or ukrainian, vygrash or vyigrysh, which means winnings or profits.. used in US since 1912 to mean interest charged by loan shark)

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

After a quick think and a quick glance at M-W, it looks like the "stupid" meaning of goon predates the thug meaning. Simple connection between the two: It's important the thug has very few thoughts of his own, follows orders and gets on with the job exactly as specified. This is also, of course, his (theoretical) weakness.

for etymology, M-W suggests:
probably short for English dialect gooney (simpleton)

- which is suspiciously close to the suggested etymology for goof (at least in meaning):
probably alteration of English dialect goff (simpleton)

So you could say Goofy is a bit of a goon.

So the word goonda as used by Indians to mean thug just happens to sound the same? Or is it borrowed from the English word goon. (And how on earth can I find this out????)

So the word goonda as used by Indians to mean thug just happens to sound the same?
I think so, Bean.

Just found this at:
http://www.indian-express.com/ie/daily/20010211/ied10028.html
``Shalom, mantriji,'' Zubin shouted and dragged me by the arm. ``Here, here, meet the greatest goonda of Israel, none other than Arik Sharon,'' he said,

If goonda meant the same as the English goon (with its strong implication of stupidity), I don't think the term would be used here. It appears to mean more "chief gangster" than "thug".

So, without getting political or anything, would Arik be Hindustani for Ariel?

It appears to mean more "chief gangster" than "thug".

I was specifically asking about the thug-meaning of goon in my original query, maybe that wasn't clear. Dictionaries give two separate senses for goon, the "idiot" sense, and the "thug" sense.

Anyway, in this book, it really means thug; it's used repeatedly in that sense in the speech of people in the book I'm reading (which is, of course, at home right now).

For example, the rent-collector (representing the landlord) comes around with two goondas to trash the apartment of the main character, after accusing her of running an illegal factory (two fellows on sewing machines) out of her apartment. The goondas punch the two tailors, bash the sewing machines, destroy the furniture, break the windows, and threaten to come back in 48 hours if she doesn't vacate the facilities. Definitely the "thug" meaning there.

I did find something on Word Detective:

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.

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."

"Goon squad" is another use that I have seen (and like), referring to a group of hired muscle, typically of low intellectual ability.

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.

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...

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."

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.

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?

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.