Charlie.Williams@pinkroccade.co.uk writes:
>"Yob" means an uncouth and rowdy man, rather than a
crook. Usually found in
>herds. Fond of lager and casual violence. It's
typically the comfortable and
>blinkered middle classes who use this term. And it's
a pretty lazy one if you
>ask me.
>As for etymology, far as I know YOB = backwards
boy.
I think its popularity is partly because it's short so fits
into newspaper headlines more easily than 'hooligan',
although it doesn't have the alliterative qualities of the
much used 1980s newspaper phenomenom, "Lager Louts". I
suppose we will have to wait untill young people take up
drinking something beggining with Y, yoghurt perhaps?. I have
heard Australians use HOON in a similar sense, is this a
shortening of HOOLIGAN? Which is usually shortened in the UK
to Hooli. As it comes from backwards BOY, was it originally
self-applied in some sort of back slang? Colin.
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