{"id":7414,"date":"2016-02-08T18:59:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T23:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7414"},"modified":"2016-02-08T18:59:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T23:59:26","slug":"hoos-sorry-gow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7414","title":{"rendered":"Hoo’s sorry gow?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, for reasons I don’t recall,<\/strong> the word “hoosegow” entered my mind. If you’re like me, you know it mostly from Westerns. It’s what crude cowboys called a jail. “Throw him in the hoosegow!”<\/p>\n

It occurred to me to wonder about the origins of the word. Off the top of my head, I guessed it was one of those American borrowings from Dutch, like “boss.” The “hoose” element sounds like the Germanic “hus” or “huis,” meaning house.<\/p>\n

So I looked it up. Turns out it’s not Dutch but Spanish, from the word “jusgado,”<\/em> meaning jail. One of those cowboy borrowings from the Mexicans, like high heeled boots and sombreros.<\/p>\n

And now you know too. Because I’m generous. Not a master of languages, but generous.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Spanish-speaking friend tells me jusgado <\/em>does not mean jail, but a male prisoner in a jail. This means dictionary.com<\/a> is mistaken. I want my money back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, for reasons I don’t recall, the word “hoosegow” entered my mind. If you’re like me, you know it mostly from Westerns. It’s what crude cowboys called a jail. “Throw him in the hoosegow!” It occurred to me to wonder about the origins of the word. Off the top of my head, I … Continue reading Hoo’s sorry gow?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[817,1235,1540,2629],"class_list":["post-7414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goofing","tag-dutch","tag-hoosegow","tag-jusgado","tag-spanish"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}