As you can see, my family name is Hooning — thus I am concerned about the proliferation of laws against hooning. I first came across this word a few years ago when I searched the web for my family name. The references were puzzling at first, but it soon became clear that it was similar to “tearing” as in “tearing around in the woods on a bike.” (At the time it seemed to be popular among mountain bikers and other young hooligans in New Zealand and Australia.) Unlike the down-under slang term, our name is of Dutch origin, and is pronounced with a long-o (as in honing, I guess we’re sharp!) I’ve been told that it means “honey”, although it seems they’ve introduced simplified orthography in Holland, so modern usage spells it “honing.” That spelling would probably be pronounced correctly by Anglophones more often than the one we use.
Thanks for your ruminations on this word — I’m always entertained by your writing.
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Michael Hooning:
March 28th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
As you can see, my family name is Hooning — thus I am concerned about the proliferation of laws against hooning. I first came across this word a few years ago when I searched the web for my family name. The references were puzzling at first, but it soon became clear that it was similar to “tearing” as in “tearing around in the woods on a bike.” (At the time it seemed to be popular among mountain bikers and other young hooligans in New Zealand and Australia.) Unlike the down-under slang term, our name is of Dutch origin, and is pronounced with a long-o (as in honing, I guess we’re sharp!) I’ve been told that it means “honey”, although it seems they’ve introduced simplified orthography in Holland, so modern usage spells it “honing.” That spelling would probably be pronounced correctly by Anglophones more often than the one we use.
Thanks for your ruminations on this word — I’m always entertained by your writing.