HOON- where did the word come from???

[T_Terror]

Is it just me or is the word hoon being used a bit much lately? In politics, in the news, etc.

I remember when i was growing up, the word "hoon" was used by old people (so it would have been in general use around 50 years ago) to describe wild, rowdy people usually youngsters ie. those young hoons were out late tearing up the town last night.

When did it become synonymous with car enthusiasts? Why has it caught on so much that its used when describing policy by governments? Will it ever end?


I used to be bemused by people using it but now it ****es me off! Why cant I be called a "Street Racer" like the yanks do? lol

[Phoon Hoon]

Yeah, I hate the word Hoon. Specially when you drive a Phoon.

[thefargo]

from abc radio...


Chris emails that when driving English visitors around Melbourne he saw some P-platers driving stupidly and said: “Look at those hoons.” His English friends were baffled having never heard the word hoon before.
Does a New Zealand listener to NewsRadio have any suggestions?
This is hardly surprising, since the Oxford English Dictionary records hoon as Australian and New Zealand slang (for a show-off with limited intelligence), adding “origin unknown”. Sid Baker, in his The Australian Language suggests hoon might be a contraction from the houyhnhnms (the anthropomorphic horses in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels). The problem with this idea is that the horses are civilised, it’s their human slaves, the yahoos, who are the dills. It occurs to me that hoon might be of New Zealand origin, since NZ has many other related expressions: hoonish, hoon bin, hoon chaser, hoondom, hoonery, hoon it up and so on. Could hoon be a corruption of a Maori word?

[Full Noise]

I’m sick to death of the over use of it. A little bit like the word terrorist. These days you only have to take your car past 4000 RPM to be called a hoon.
It’s getting beyond the joke.

[16wantsI6]

camry drivers are taking over the press

[Gimmers55]

Here are some suggestions:

hoon - 1. a hoodlum; rowdy, tough, rough, unsavoury youth; member of a street gang; hooligan; 2. foolish show-off; 3. one who lives off the earnings of prostitutes; pimp.

From the ABC

The Macquarie Dictionary defines a hoon as “a foolish or silly person, especially one who is a show-off”. But – as I’ve explained before on WordWatch – no one is quite certain where the word hoon comes from. What is its derivation? I asked.
...research continues.

In response a came a flood of emails suggesting that hoon is a contraction of “hooligan”. Well, that might well be the case. And one listener suggested that hoon might be a combination of “hooligan” and “goon”. Another proposed that it’s rhyming slang for “baboon”; while yet another suggested it was based “buffoon”. All are possibilities. But then my colleague Stuart Gary told me that “huhn” is German for “chicken” and thus a hoon might originally have meant someone running around like a headless chicken. Then a listener pointed me to another German (similar) word for an ancient mythical race of clumsy giants. That seems a little less likely.

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by Gimmers55

Here are some suggestions:

One who lives off the earnings of prostitutes.

Well, that’d be me. :hihi:

[AWD Chaser]

My take of hoon is someone who always drives fast, and disregards laws and saftey of others....

I hate how people (specificaly older people, or polititians) call people doing the following, hoons:

Playing music loud in a car, weather or not the car is moving
Reving your car hard, again, weather or not it is moving
Driving a real nice sports car (eg. Supra or Skyline), weather or not you are going fast, hard, or even slow....

and my favourite....

Being called a hoon after accelerating fast up to the speed limit, only to have an older driver overtake you and calling you a hoon, when he is speeding!!! lol....

[GTWHOA]

Hoon. any P plater with a decent car. The only P platers that are not hoons are those with cars that dont allow them to hoon. :

[Grechie]

i too am sick of the word hoon, its homo

[WILDTRAKPX2]

I looked up "hoon" in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoon

I wasn't happy with the overall general inference that hoons gernerally have turbo chargers, super chargers, brakes etc etc so I added this:

Most genuine car enthusiasts are well behaved and usually belong to well run car clubs which provide access to racetracks, skid pans and driver training and or education. The renegades, most suffering from extreme delusions of grandeur, are the problem. They quite often fall into the "RICE" or "MUTANT" categories.
Common aftermarket modifications in this style can include:

• Body modifications
  • Aerodynamic-looking or artistically creative body kits
  • Wings and spoilers that serve no useful function
    • Many wings used are not tuned in windtunnels, and are not useful even at high speeds; they may cause excessive drag and wind noise as well.
    • Rear aerodynamic wings are normally used to increase downforce on the rear of car in order to increase traction for what typically are the rear drive wheels, whereas the use of a spoiler on a front wheel drive car has little effect on the drive wheel traction, and in some cases can reduce traction.
  • Carbon fiber hoods (sometimes fiberglass replicas made to look like carbon fiber, or just decorative self adhesive plastic with carbon fiber look)
  • Non-functional hood scoops
  • Excessively large wheels ("rims") (for example chromed, or "dubs") that often decrease acceleration due to higher rotational inertia. Handling is also often made worse by the extra unsprung weight.
  • Spinner wheel covers, which result in the wheels appearing to rotate either slower or faster than reality. These can be dangerous if improperly maintained, and also increase unsprung weight.
  • Dual windshield wipers replaced with a single-wiper mechanism
  • Improperly lowered suspension, such as stock springs shortened by heating or cutting. This action is frowned upon by both seasoned tuners and spring manufacturers. Heating a spring will remove the tempering and weaken it, ultimately causing failure, and cutting springs may severely compromise safety and handling characteristics.
• Aesthetics
  
  • Bright paint or interior, frequently in contrasting colors
  • Decals and stickers for aftermarket parts not actually present on the vehicle
    • Sometimes with the name of the car's model in a stylized font, usually covering the upper rear window or front windshield
    • Or other lettering in kanji or kana characters
  • Badging from other higher-performance vehicles (Honda's "Type-R" and Nissan's "GT-R" being the most common)
  • Badging from JDM tuning companies like Mugen, Nismo, etc.
  • Other graphics that seem to not "fit" with the car (side graphics, flames, racing stripes, etc.)
• A loud, free-flowing exhaust system with a large cylindrical resonator at the rear of the car, known as a "fart cannon" and many other colorful names.
  
  • In many cases, only the last few inches of the exhaust are replaced, producing no change in performance and in fact, typically reduces performance. These are sometimes called "coffee cans", based on one method of constructing them.
• Racing equipment used in an improper manner. For example, a racing tachometer, typically Auto Meter or other imitation brands as an cheaper option, used in an automatic transmission car that was meant to be used in a manual transmission car.
• Lighting
  
  • Decorative neon and LED lighting in addition to the regular head/tail lamps and brake/turn signals, such as lighted windshield washer nozzles and tire valve caps, underbody neon lighting ("hover lights"), etc.
  • Modification of turn signals to blink faster than normal
  • So-called "Bad Boy" headlights, meant to give a frowning appearance and popular in Europe
  • Euro-style taillights, also known as "Altezza"-style lights or "Altezzas" (equally popular and known as "Lexus" lights in Europe)
  • Super-bright headlight bulbs (although most of these bulbs offer better lighting than conventional halogen bulbs), sometimes of illegal specification and poorly aligned; colored bulbs, also often illegal, which are used for turning signals, side-markers, etc.
  • Unnecessary fog lights and extra lighting units usually intended for off-roading vehicles (often intended for Rally races), generally illuminated in inappropriate conditions or dangerous/illegal manners
• Sloppy workmanship
  
  • Poorly fitted body kits
  • Areas of exposed primer and/or body filler (Bondo)
  • Car has any of the aforementioned modifications, yet appears to have not been properly cared for (dirty, parts of the car with smashed or dented body work, etc.)

I know, I know... some here MAY have some of these mods, but a modified version of same, so I don't mean to offend anyone so please don't take it personally. _2:

[AWD Chaser]

What does the above have to do with hoon? That is Rice, which descibes the car, whereas hoon descibes the driver....

[XA Coupsta]

HOOligaN

I dunno but thats my guess.

And as for getting upset about being called a hoon? Simple. I dont let it get to me.

Its gotta take more than that to get under your skin surely?!

And besides. If you let it get to you - they win. That was the point of them labelling you hoon in the first place.

[WILDTRAKPX2]

Originally Posted by au3 chaser

What does the above have to do with hoon? That is Rice, which descibes the car, whereas hoon descibes the driver....

Read my post again, and read the wikipedia content.

Edit: You are quite correct as "hoons" could certainly drive a stock datsun 120Y, and I agree with you, but the slant in wikipedia is against "performance" cars and/or modifications.

[DEVL-XR]

about time people started cracking down on the word 'hoon'! its ****ing me off too! its impossible to drive a car (especially with a louder exhaust) without being called a hoon from pedestrians on the street and newsreaders!

the word 'hoon' should be banned!!

cheers
Braden

[BPXR6T]

A few of the more strange definitions of the word "hoon" from urban dictionary...

1. a person who lives off the proceeds of prostitution. ie. a prostitute, pimp, etc
2. a durogatory term meaning a hair that grows out of the tip of a *****
3. one who is only attracted to minorites
4. the apparatus used to remove blackheads from your ear

[pertuan]

I reckon Hoon comes from Hooligan.

Its funny that some older blokes call me a hoon when I never break the speed limit, hence never had a speeding fine, never had an accident, never had my car sideways. All I do is accelerate hard up to the limit.

And these older blokes are the ones who've lost the license at least once, had speeding fines, and have got only 3 demerit points left. I wonder who the "hoon" is between them and me.

[BLOAN]

hoon: = lout

lout: = an uncouth or aggressive man or boy!

[niko]

Originally Posted by pertuan

I reckon Hoon comes from Hooligan.

Its funny that some older blokes call me a hoon when I never break the speed limit, hence never had a speeding fine, never had an accident, never had my car sideways. All I do is accelerate hard up to the limit.

And these older blokes are the ones who've lost the license at least once, had speeding fines, and have got only 3 demerit points left. I wonder who the "hoon" is between them and me.

i think this mans on the money...

[T_Terror]

Well if im going down, im taking everyone else with me.

The other day it was raining, and an old lady was waiting to turn right in her "cardigan" spec camry.
But then as her turn came she went a bit too hard and spun the wheels with a whirhhhh!

I saw it as a perfect opportunity to turn the tables on the people who had invented the word, and stuck my head out the van, pointed with my finger of shame and yelled out,

"AHHAAAA!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Phoon Hoon]

Originally Posted by FourBarrel

A few of the more strange definitions of the word "hoon" from urban dictionary...

1. a person who lives off the proceeds of prostitution. ie. a prostitute, pimp, etc
2. a durogatory term meaning a hair that grows out of the tip of a *****
3. one who is only attracted to minorites
4. the apparatus used to remove blackheads from your ear

Geez. I need to change my username.

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by Phoon Hoon

Geez. I need to change my username.

You could always change it to Toxic Hoon. :hihi: :hihi:

[BPXR6T]

From the source of all truth(not) wiki,

Derivation
While the history of this word is somewhat ambiguous, it is generally assumed that hoon came out of the word hooligan, which is defined as "a tough or aggressive youth".

Also used by people in the south west of england to describe an act of going fast - particularly popular amongst the mountain bike community eg "im gonna hoon down that hill"...also hooning,hoon on etc

[bessxg]

Originally Posted by T_Terror

Well if im going down, im taking everyone else with me.

The other day it was raining, and an old lady was waiting to turn right in her "cardigan" spec camry.
But then as her turn came she went a bit too hard and spun the wheels with a whirhhhh!

I saw it as a perfect opportunity to turn the tables on the people who had invented the word, and stuck my head out the van, pointed with my finger of shame and yelled out,

"AHHAAAA!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hahaha! GOLD!!

[AWD Chaser]

Originally Posted by T_Terror

Well if im going down, im taking everyone else with me.

The other day it was raining, and an old lady was waiting to turn right in her "cardigan" spec camry.
But then as her turn came she went a bit too hard and spun the wheels with a whirhhhh!

I saw it as a perfect opportunity to turn the tables on the people who had invented the word, and stuck my head out the van, pointed with my finger of shame and yelled out,

"AHHAAAA!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent... we young guns and car enthusiests will soon change the branding of hoon to:

"Incompitent older driver who drives an under-spec, non-local car, with tyres only half pumped up and massive tyre wear on the outside half of the tyre, who only knows how to drive in the dry between 9am and 5pm (before it gets a little dark), and tend to come out in force with other hoons, mainly on midday, sunday. Some hoons may been seen towing a caravan, but this is mainly seen when they are on the side of the road changing one of it's tyres."