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HOOSEGOW

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:49 am
by Dr. Goodword
• hoosegow •

Pronunciation: hus-gæw • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: (Slang) A jail or prison.

Notes: Today's Good Word is a facetious slang word not used in formal English. The S is often pronounced [z] but the preferred pronunciation is [s]. The plural of hoosegow is hoosegows and that is the only form it has.

In Play: Although this word may be used to refer to prisons, it most often indicates the local jail (or gaol, if you are from Britain): "Miss Deeds collected parking tickets for 12 years and refused to pay them until threatened with a weekend in the hoosegow." Always expect to get a smile when you say something like this: "Frederico has boozed his way into the local hoosegow so many times, he is more at home there than in his house."

Word History: This word is a mispronunciation of a word, juzgado [huz-gah-dho] "a court, tribunal", that was borrowed out West from Spanish. The Spanish word is based on the verb juzgar "to judge", the Spanish descendant of Latin iudicare "to pass judgement". The Latin word goes back to the noun, ius [yus] "law". Since Classical Latin didn't have the letter J or Y, the Romans used the letter I the way we use Y: as a consonant before vowels (as in yes) and as a vowel after consonants and vowels (as in very and boy). So the root ius is found in many English words borrowed from Latin, such as just, justice, and judge. (We are happy that Dr. Lyn Laboriel shared her—we are sure—purely second-hand knowledge of this word with us for today's Good Word.)

Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:24 pm
by Slava
Now comes the question: would Miss Deeds have been threatened with a weekend in the hoosegow, or the clink?

And I must abase myself before my fellow Agorans; I only just twigged to the meaning of Colonel Klink's name from the ancient sit-com "Hogan's Heroes." Sad, aint' it?

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:19 am
by Stargzer
Now comes the question: would Miss Deeds have been threatened with a weekend in the hoosegow, or the clink?

And I must abase myself before my fellow Agorans; I only just twigged to the meaning of Colonel Klink's name from the ancient sit-com "Hogan's Heroes." Sad, aint' it?
Yep. I never got it, either!

It was only recently, after several years, that a really bad double pun hit me: the given name of Peter Schmuck, a sportswriter for the Baltimore Sun.

OY! He must have had a harder time growing up than Johnny Cash's Boy Named Sue!

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:22 pm
by Slava
At my undergraduate college, one of the deans was named Beverly. He went by Pete.