play hookie
Who taught: Phil
Dog playing hooky
This morning, I got a text message from one of the golf courses I have been. A while ago, I subscribed for their text message service. It reads, “play hookie and golf!” It was weird that the golf course is encouraging me to play hookie for golf. The definition of the expression is
To miss school or work without suitable excuse, for example, saying you are sick or you have a death in your family.
“Play hooky” is also the same thing you can use. It is just a different spelling but the same pronunciation. Not sure which one is more common though? As always, I was very curious about the origin of the expression. Here is the one I found which sounds very reasonable.
The first printed use of the phrase is 1848 and it is related to the 19th-century phrase “hooky-crooky,” which means “dishonest or underhanded.” The parent of this phrase is “by hook or by crook,” meaning “by any means necessary.” (source : word detective)
Then, my question is do you guys still use “by hook or by crook” expression?
When you use this, you should be really careful with your pronunciation or spelling if you are writing this because there is also another expression, “nookie.” Nookie means sexual intercourse and knowing the meaning of nookie, you can easily figure out what “play nookie” would mean, right? Well, who knows? There might be some people who play hookie to play nookie. I found very funny cartoon from the Internet. You know, even your dog plays hooky. 🙂 I have to be honest. Days like today are very hard to resist to play hookie! Have you ever played hookie? I guess the answer would be yes, right?
Today is a beautiful day to play hookie… you know the golf course is calling you… meet you at Schenely at 10am?
Man! You are evil. But you should go to schenley park and practice for our competition later. Mano-a-Mano!
I may use it occasionally, but only for kitsch appeal because it’s an old-timey phrase. I’d be more likely to say the slightly-less-old phrase, “come hell or high water”. My mom used to say that one all the time. Although she was also known for mixed metaphors, so you had to be careful when you were using her expressions. My favorite of hers was:
“Come hell or high water” is one of the expressions in my draft. I will write up later about it. I like the mile expression. I will add it up in my draft too. Thanks!
Heh, your mom.
Terry, I think you are familiar with the wide and wonderful world of ‘your mom’ jokes? This was an excellent opportunity for one 🙂
Learning English is HARD…..(T.T)