[net.nlang] Canadian slang: "hoser"

gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett) (01/10/84)

I was talking to a man over the phone, he being in a certain Mid-western
Canadian city, dealing with a Unix bug envolving terminal drivers, when
he said, "... and the line gets hosed."

I stopped him right there.  Finally, a Real Canadian Person was using
`hose' in some meaningful context.  I immediately asked him about the
usage of this word, my having learned it from Bob and Doug MacKenzie.
I told him I even called the Canadian Embassy in San Francisco and they
didn't know what I was refering to, and I've never really understood what
it meant.

But apparently this word means `screwed' (figuratively), `messed up',
and its variant forms convey obvious meaning (`hosehead' -- like
`nucklehead', or as he put it, `spambrain'; and `hoser', screwed-up
person, etc).

I feel so much better now.  The true meaning of this word has eluded
me for several years.  I am now enlightened.

gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett) (01/10/84)

By the way, this Canadian tells me that there ARE really people
like Bob and Doug MacKenzie up There.  ("You guys may think it's
just a joke, but they're for real!").

So what's all this about back bacon, then?

norskog@fortune.UUCP (Lance Norskog) (01/10/84)

I was under the impression that "to hose" was to urinate.

edhall@randvax.ARPA (Ed Hall) (01/27/84)

------------------------------------
I just peeked in my Dictionary of American Slang (an awfully thick
book for something which doesn't seem to have much slang from since
the second World War).  It had just one definition: to flatter
someone insincerely was to `hose' them.  No derivation...

Back in the late 1960's when my sister was an undergraduate in
Wooster, Ohio, one of the slang expressions she picked up was
to `hose' someone; this meant to fool them or to pull a practical
joke on them (the latter called `pulling a hose').  Thus in this
case as well a `hoser' was an insincere person.

		-Ed
		decvax!randvax!edhall