Hob-nob:
To hob-nob with someone is to associate with them; to keep their
company. The expression is a corruption of the now defunct hab-nab in
turn a shortening of old English habbe (=hit) and nabbe (=miss). This
took on the implication of give & take and this giving and
taking (of drinks) is one of the hallmarks of hob-nobbing. In 1811 it
was "Will you Hob or Nob with me?" If the party so questioned replied
"nob" they were deemed to have agreed to have a drink of wine with the
proposer and had to choose red or white wine. The 1811 suggested origin
goes back to the days of good queen Bess when great chimneys were in
fashion. On each corner of the hearth or grate was a small projection
called the hob. In winter beer was placed upon the hob to warm and cold
beer was set upon a small table, said to have been called the nob and
so the question "will you hob or nob with me?" seems to merely been an
invitation to warm or cold beer. The modern use of Hob retains the
furnace association.
Hobo: He's a bit of a hobo is an Americanism used to describe a
travelling tramp-like worker, unlike a true tramp who travels without
working, or a "bum" who neither travels or works. The origin is from
hoe-boy, which was the name for a migratory farm worker.
Hobson: Hobson's choice is no choice at all. This goes back to an
actual Hobson who died in 1631. He ran a livery stable in Cambridge and
was well known in his day; in fact Milton, who was a student in
Cambridge at the time, mentions him in two epitaphs. Hobson was
renowned for the fact he would only let out his horses in strict
rotation - there was no choice at all.
Hog: To go the whole hog means to do something thoroughly, completely.
There are a number of possible origins for this expression and, again
not all are equally acceptable. The first recorded use of the sense of
the phrase is found in 1779 in a poem by William Cowper. The poem
concerns debate by Muslim divines about which parts of the pig were
forbidden as food by the Prophet. Unable to reach a decision, each
wished to declare that their own favourite portion was acceptable. As
individual tastes differed it meant that the whole hog was acceptable.
"Thus conscience freed from every clog, Mohametans eat up the hog."
An alternative comes from the fact that in Ireland a shilling and in
America a 10c piece were both known as a hog and if one spent the money
all at once the whole hog was gone.
A third possibility places the origin firmly in the USA. In Virginia
the butchers allegedly asked their customers if they wished to purchase
the whole hog or only part of the animal. The phrase was widely used
during Andrew Jackson's 1828 Presidential campaign.
Hollow: To beat someone hollow is to beat them soundly, but why hollow?
The only offered origin that I have found suggests that hollow is a
corruption of wholly.
Hook: By hook or by crook is a phrase which suggests that something is
done by any means possible; by some means or other; one way or another.
This goes back to medieval Britain when there was a custom for tenants
of the Lord of the Manor to be allowed to collect firewood from the
trees, but only as much as could be cut off with a bill-hook or pulled
down with a shepherd's crook.
To
be told to sling your hook is a way of saying ‘clear off, you're not
wanted'. Here's what I've read about a suggested origin, but with no
documentation to back it up.
"It is a dockers' phrase from the industrial revolution in the early
1800s in places like East London, Liverpool and Portsmouth. Much of the
trade coming into these ports were in bales, especially bales of cotton
and wool (Britain made 80% of the worlds cloth at the time). It was
common practice for Dockers to have hooks in which they would impale
the bales in order to make them easier to carry. Work was given out
daily on an ad hoc basis depending on how many ships were in port and
what cargo they were carrying. Queues of dockers would form, and when
all the days jobs were allocated, the remaining dockers were told to
'Sling your Hook', or 'Sling yer 'ook', as in 'Throw away your hook or
put it over your shoulder and leave, there's no work for you today'.
An interesting colloquialism
offshoot of this is that in Liverpool during the first dockers strikes,
labour drafted in from outside Liverpool used to carry the bales on
their backs, as they had no hooks to carry them with. Henceforth,
anyone in Liverpool who speaks with a 'funny' accent (i.e. not a scouse
accent) is known as a 'Woolyback'". This was submitted by 'Dennis' on
the SHU Phrase message Board on 10th March 2006.
Hookey. To play hookey is to take absence from school - to play truant.
My researches have failed to give a decent origin for the expression.
It's recorded as 'Hooky', i.e. no 'e', US mid 19C+, to play truant.
In Brewer it's spelt 'hookey' and a suggested origin is 'from the idea
"to hook" something is to make off with it'. There never seems to have
been a person called 'Hook' or 'Hook(e)y'.
The “Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins” by Robert Hendrickson
(Facts on File, New York, 1997), has the following. “There is no widely
accepted explanation for the word ‘hookey’ or ‘hooky.’ An Americanism
that arose in the late 19th century, when compulsory attendance laws
became the rule in public schools, ‘hooky’ may be a compression of the
older expression ‘hook it,’ ‘to escape or make off,’ formed by dropping
the ‘t’ in the phrase. Or it could be related to the old slang word
‘hook,’ meaning ‘to steal,’: kids stealing a day off from school.
‘Hooky’ has so often been associated with going fishing that it may
even owe its life to ‘getting off the hook’ the way a fish can; anyway,
school is often insufferable as a hook to schoolchildren and many kids
squirming in their seats all day look like they are on a hook.”
Not very satisfactory, I'm afraid, but that's all I've been able to
come up with.
Hoop: When someone is put through the hoop then they are punished or
are in trouble. This comes from the ancient marine custom of "to run
the hoop" in which four or more half naked boys had their left hands
tied to an iron hoop. Each had a length of rope, called a nettle, in
the other hand. One of the boys was then hit with a cat o'nine tails by
the bosun; the boy in turn hit the boy in front with his rope and so
on. The lashes were at first quite gentle, but soon became heavy and in
earnest. This "pastime" was anciently practised when a ship was
becalmed.
Horse: Never look a gift horse in the mouth is said in order to
discourage too great an inspection of a gift, which might be less
valuable than first thought, thereby taking the gilt off the
gingerbread. To those who know about horses the analogy is clear; the
age of a horse is well mirrored in the state of its teeth. Too close an
inspection could result in a nasty surprise with the animal proving to
be long in the tooth.
A
dark horse on the other hand, is an unknown quantity; a person whose
qualities are untried. This saying is said to go back to the Victorian
politician Benjamin Disraeli who, apart from finding time to regularly
become Prime Minister, also found time to write a novel called "The
Young Duke". In the book there is a description of a horse race in
which the two favourites cannot make the running. In the meanwhile "a
dark horse...rushed past the grandstand in a sweeping triumph".
