4/2/2023 0 Comments Iota definitionThe 1971 full-length edition Oxford English Dictionary is quite disappointing in this regard: it doesn't include a meaning along the lines of "something worthless or trifling" at all. But again, this interpretation does not seem to take into consideration the 1830s instances of hooter as iota, nor does it deal with the chronological evidence that "not care a hooter" seems to be roughly 30 years older than "not care a hoot." This treatment of definition 2 of hoot as a noun suggests that it, like the owl cry and the amusing thing or person, originated as a descriptive sound. Lighter, Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1997) declines to endorse the "iota" derivation: Chronologically, the match is not perfect, since the first "not care a hooter" that Elephind reports is considerably older than the first "not care an iota." newspapers of " not care an iota" (from as early as March 28, 1867), " not give an iota" (from as early as November 25, 1854), and " not worth an iota" (from as early as January 31, 1874). Searches of the Elephind newspaper database turn up multiple instances in U.S. If Barrère & Leland is correct that "not care an iota" was commonly used in New England in the late eighteenth century in a similar manner to "not care a hooter," it seems to me that it offers a strong circumstantial boost to the hooter-as-corrupted- iota argument. Bartlett conjectures that it is a corruption of iota, which is also commonly used in New England in a similar manner.Īh, Billy, you and your sword-cane can't do a hooter among the girls, fine as you think yourself.- Philadelphia Comic Newspaper. Hooter (American), a comparative for anything worthless or trifling. (American.)-A corruption of 'iota' : e.g., 'I don't care a HOOTER for him.'Īlbert Barrère & Charles Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant (1889) reaches a similar conclusion, with an additional interesting a potentially very significant observation: John Farmer & William Henley, Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present, volume 3 (1893) endorses Bartlett's etymological analysis of hooter: It is the truth that politicians who pretend to have such regard for the dear people don't care a hooter, so long as their own selfish ends are attained.- Dow's Sermons, Vol. Common in New York in such phrases as "I don't care a hooter for him," "this note ain't worth a hooter." How could the phonological leap from "iota" to "hooter" take place? Is this a strong case of folk etymology? Was there a sufficient phonological proximity historically?ĭictionary coverage of 'hooter' and 'hoot' in the sense of 'minuscule amount'Įtymology Online cites the entry for hooter in John Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, fourth edition (1877), but the entry first appears in the second edition of Dictionary of Americanisms (1859): How could "iota" become "hooter"? The explanation above sounds logical, but not quite phono-logical. (Vaguely, I used to think that I don't give a hoot had to do with hooting as the sound, but admittedly that does not make much sense, either.) Unlike "hooter", which does not seem at all to be self-explanatory as a measurement of anything. Now " iota", of course, is a plausible metaphor for a smallest amount of particle. Common in New York in such phrases as "I don't care a hooter for him." "This note ain't worth a hooter." "Ye know all this rumpus wont do nobuddy a hoot o' good-not a hoot." "A dod blasted ole fool!" answered the captain, who, till now, had been merely an amused on-looker. Slang sense of "smallest amount or particle" (the hoot you don't give when you don't care) is from 1891. On the "hoot" that we do not give, Etymonline has this to say: We say we do not give a hoot or care a hoot when we do not care very much or at all.
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