Talk:hoon
Smuconlaw - Hi. I notice you added an etymology for this entry - and I am loath to just delete it, esp. since you have referenced it. However, the connection with car engine noise has problems. First, it is ahistorical or achronological since the term originally mean a fool or lout (since the 1930s), then a pimp (since 1949 at least), and only picked up the driving sense in the 1960s or 1970s. Second, no citation I can find ever makes any mention of the sound of car engines. Third, the source cited merely says "Robyn Hodgkin e-mailed to tell me that the term hoon originates from the sound made by the engines of the cars that hoons drive." I don't know who Robyn Hodgkin is, but they are not a well-known expert on Australian English as far as I can see, so this seems to suggest that it is a folk etymology. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:50, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Sonofcawdrey: good point. The reference was elsewhere in the entry, so I moved it to the etymology section. However, I agree that it's not really that reliable. The English Wikipedia article "w:Hoon" also suggests that the word could be a clipping of hooligan, or a blend of hooligan and goon, but provides no source. Anyway, I noticed that Pingku has revised the etymology. — SMUconlaw (talk) 06:52, 22 June 2016 (UTC)