So, I'm reading a paper from the land of Oz, and the lead story is about the problem the local community is having with hoon drivers. The article uses the term in several ways, all referring to speeders and otherwise careless drivers. From the context, I discerned that the term meant "loutish", and I confirmed that meaning in the online compact Oxford English Dictionary. But the entry is very sparse, just:

noun a lout.

• verb behave like a lout.

— ORIGIN of unknown origin

Does anyone know more about this term?

Can't help much, but the Australian Wordmap offers this
http://snipurl.com/h4d1-mq42

The word is VERY common on the sentient side of the Tasman, too.

Here's another link that doesn't really help, either:

http://au.messages.yahoo.com/news/top-stories/7713?p=4

Yes v common in Oz, as in "bunch of hoons". Also used as verb, eg. "hooning about". Yobs is closest equivalent term.

jj

hoon
(n & v) lout; show-off; reckless driver; behave recklessly - "stop hooning around".

A recent example of the use of this word was in an article in "The Sunday Age" on 17 October 2004. The headline read, "Plans to seize hoons' cars". The article gave the following examples of "hoon driving behaviour": "excess noise, illegal street racing, refusal to leave a public place, exhibitions of acceleration and burn-outs". The article also referred to a "dob in a hoon" telephone hotline - two Aussie words in one go!

http://ozlip.lexigame.com/ozdict.html#hoon

> Yes v common in Oz, as in "bunch of hoons". Also used as verb, eg. "hooning about". Yobs is closest equivalent term.

A more popular term in WA is 'bogan' - means pretty much the same thing, I think; though 'hoon' is more well known. It is pretty closely associated with people driving in cars - usually souped-up Holdens or Commodores. These people get their kicks from slowing down to shout obscenities at women and men alike and then speed away, spinning wheels. In that sense, they are very different to road rage drivers, who are just aggressive people getting from A to B and don't annoy pedestrians and motorists as a pastime!

And they all ended up at the same university. Who knew?

hood + goon?

Ted: hoon you, too!

The map is very cool. How interesting that a term has developed to describe bad behavior exclusively -- it appears -- in the context of operating motor vehicles. I don't think that there is a comparable term in the US.

Yobs?

>Yobs

short for yobbos, I suppose, which is Brit. for hoodlums or goons -- and we've come full circle back to hoons.

But no one has talked about the derivation of this word from swine.

Sow hoon they forget.

Sparteye, do you have the rubber bats?

Always, Ms Creith.

:: hands Elizabeth a rubber bat ::

:: passes them out to everybody else, too ::

Sow hoon they forget.

Hilarious.

>Sparteye, do you have the rubber bats?

Rubber? May we use osmium bats instead?

Can't think of the fellow's name - author of "The Postman" and the Sundiver SF series.

In the follow-on to the Sundiver series there is a race of beings called hoons. Wonder if he made it up or was being clever.

>>Can't think of the fellow's name - author of "The Postman" and the Sundiver SF series.<<

David Brin

Ask not for hoon the bell tolls...

Ask not for hoon the bell tolls...

And some say it is only TEd.

Father Steve quoted from my website (http://ozlip.lexigame.com/ozdict.html#hoon), about hoon, but let me expand on that.

Australian dictionaries give a few meanings for hoon, apart from the reckless driver. The oldest sense seems to be a procurer of prostitutes. This meaning is labelled "dated" by the Australian Oxford. (Another Australian slang term, "bludger", has a similar original meaning, but now usually means a cadger , or parasite of any kind.)

Other meanings for hoon given by G A Wilkes in his Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms are "general term of insult", "anyone given to loutish behaviour" and "a thug, a heavy (not criminal)", as in "security hoon".

It probably is true that the most commonly used meaning now is "someone driving fast and aggressively". "Hooning around" is also used for such behaviour - Wilkes quotes a newspaper article about "rogue jet ski riders" who were "hooning around inside the flags at patrolled swimming beaches".

I have not seen any explanation of the origin of the word.

welcome, Alan!

> I have not seen any explanation of the origin of the word.

I'm still thinking hood(lum) + goon...

Welcome, Alan. It is a pleasure to hear from someone from whose website I found an answer to a Board question.

> It is a pleasure to hear from someone from whose website I found an answer to a Board question.

Thanks for the nice snug mantle, Your Honour.

>Welcome, Alan. It is a pleasure to hear from someone from whose website I found an answer to a Board question.

Thanks to Google, it's pretty easy to become an expert on something these days, provided the topic's obscure enough. Recently I asked some friends what they knew about the Australian word "piff". We discussed it for a while, and the next day one of my friends sent me a link to a Web page that had a definition of the word. Sure enough, it was my own site!

Hi Alan, nice to see a fellow linguaphile on Board.

How does it feel to have somebody quote you to yourself?

>How does it feel to have somebody quote you to yourself?

Well of course it's always pleasing to read something that's clever, well-informed and witty.

something that's clever, well-informed and witty

Oh, you'll fit in here real good.

something that's clever, well-informed and witty
Oh, you'll fit in here real good.

Oh, yeah! Welcome aBoard, Alan!

*buys Alan a beer

yep, welcome indeed Alan - sounds like you're just our kind of nut :)

<buys sjmaxq an exotic fruit infusion, chilled for an hour or two and left stuwing over the mantlepiece>