Alouette from Nelson, New Hampshire, grew up using the term hosey in order to claim something, as in I hosey that! The word’s origin is uncertain, although some speculate that hosey derives from holdsie, as in I put a hold on something. Variants include hoosey, hornsey, and honsie. Other expressions to lay claim to something desired include finnie, fin dibs, fin whackie. An article by Horace Reynolds in the journal American Speech lists many more, including this one from Ireland, which expresses not only claimed possession but the new owner’s unwillingness to share any part of it at all: Fen dibs, fen shackies, no dibs, no aikies, no chips, no divvies, and no halveens. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “To Hosey Something is to Claim It”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Alouette Islin from Nelson, New Hampshire.
Alouette, hello, welcome to the show.
What a lovely name.
Thank you, I like it.
What would you like to talk with us about?
Well, I am curious about the origin of the word hosie, as in, I hosie the front seat. And some people say dibs, and you know, I’ve been talking about this to people and they’re like, hosie, I never heard that. And I said, well, it’s like dibs. And they say, oh, I know dibs. But have you heard this word, Hosey?
Oh, yeah. We’ve heard it and lots of variations of it.
So where did you grow up?
I grew up in various places. I was born in Massachusetts. We lived in Burlington. And then we moved to Marblehead. So I was in Massachusetts for most of my childhood and then Milwaukee. And now back to the East Coast again. So I’m not really sure where I heard this word. I sort of think of it as a childhood word, so probably something that I heard a lot in Massachusetts.
Oh, sure, sure. That makes a lot of sense.
Okay. So many kids in Massachusetts grew up saying Hosey or Whozie or Hornsy or Hansy to claim something, to lay claim to whatever object you want. And isn’t part of the whole game that you have to say it before anybody else?
Yes.
Yeah, the first person who says it wins.
Right. Exactly. Right, exactly. It’s pretty local to New England. And Grant, I’m not sure that we have an origin for that. Some people have suggested that maybe it’s a version of Holdsy. You know, I’ve got a hold on this thing.
Yeah. Oh. There was some report of it from Horace Reynolds in his American Speech article that he had a report of it from southern England, but it’s not confirmed that it’s possible that it came over from the UK.
Right, and it’s one of many, many, many, many terms that children find useful. Dibs and honeys and finny and fin dibs and a wacky and fin wacky, and those are just the U.S. ones.
Yeah. I don’t know those. I mean, I know dibs, but I haven’t heard the others.
Hosey is common in New England, or as Grant said, finny is another good one. I finny that. And then, of course, there’s this whole group of expressions for defending what you’ve claimed, announcing that you’re not going to share it with anybody else. Like no divvies, like I’m not going to divide it up. There’s a whole slew of these.
Wow. Okay. In this article in the American Speech, there’s an Irishman in Cork who says when he was a kid, you had to say the whole string of them. You would say fin dibs, fin shackies, no dibs, no achies, no chips, no divvies, and no havines. And that’s how you got to, so that’s how you said, I’m not sharing this. It’d be something that you brought from home or bought at the store. And it just meant I’m not sharing any of this.
So no one else can have what they call the first boar on your apple, a first bite, or a Snooksy or Lixies of your lollipop. They could not have a share of it.
So do you use that now?
No. I’m not sure why. I mean, I was listening to your show, and it came into my head, and I thought, I need to ask these folks where this comes from. Because, and no, I haven’t used it lately. I mean, would you still use it as an adult is what I’m wondering.
Yeah. In certain company, yes. In certain company. If you were in a restaurant and you want a particular something behind the glass, you say, I hosie that piece of chicken. You wouldn’t do that. I hosie that last bagel.
Yeah. You’re going to buy the sliced pizza place. I hosie that last pizza piece.
I could see myself saying that, yeah. We’ll put a bunch of these on the website when we post the show. But, Alouette, thank you so much for the call.
Thank you.
Take care.
All right.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Maybe while we were talking about terms for claiming or defending what you have when you were a kid, all this dibs and hosy, maybe you thought of a term that you used that we didn’t mention. Well, we’d love to hear that. Any of your variations are welcome, 877-929-9673.
Or what else came to mind when we talked about the games that kids play, the weird words that you used and the rhymes and chants? Send them to us in email, words@waywordradio.org, or tell us on Twitter @wayword.
