A newspaper blurb speaks of a photo of a woman "showing her 'hoovering, what looked like cocaine." Is this a real word, or just the blurb writer's creation, and where does it come from?

I think you're refering to 'hoovering' in your question.

Hoover is a brand name for a kind of vacuum cleaner. It is also in extremely common use for all vacuum cleaners (though RE who despises the use of brand names as generics probably doesn't use it ). It is also used as a verb.

I guess the writer is using it metaphorically to refer to her nose.

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though RE who despises the use of brand names as generics probably doesn't use it Smile )

Quite so. The vacuum cleaner was invented by the Englishman Booth, and the portable vaccuum cleaner by the American, Spangler. Quite apart from the dubious use of a brand name for the generic "vacuum cleaner", it's even the wrong brand name!

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Quite apart from the dubious use of a brand name for the generic "vacuum cleaner", it's even the wrong brand name!

It's even the wrong name: there is no vacuum in a vacuum cleaner.

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I guess the writer is using it metaphorically to refer to her nose.

I've heard it used as a synonym for devouring as well.

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It's even the wrong name: there is no vacuum in a vacuum cleaner.

True - although there is an area of low pressure.

Incidentally, I also call vacuum flasks, vaccum flasks - not "Thermos" flasks, which is a brand name.

Despite the protestations off a vocal minority, "hoover" and "hoovering" have taken on new meanings. Here's a sample of quotes:

• Hoover (Verification for this usage is being sought): Fellatio. (Wikipedia)
  
  
• 27 definitions, some repetitious, from Urban Dictionary
  
  
• Hoovering: An abortion. (Do You Know What Your Teen is Really Doing?)
  
  
• Hoovering: An abortion. (Do You Know What Your Teen is Really Doing?)
  
  
• We also saw lots of big yellowfin tuna hoovering up mantis shrimps just to the south of Kitugamwe Reef. (Sea Adventures, August 7, 2002)
  
  
• While the Académie Française worries over the invasion of English words like 'le hot dog' and 'très smart', we English speakers have been hoovering up foreign words at an alarming rate for centuries. (G.A.P. Adventures newsletter, English the Borrower, 2004 – click on the link, “More English etymology,” to see a list of words of Indian origin)
  
  
• English has long had a habit of hoovering up words, often associated with food, from languages round the world: the ubiquitous 'coulis' from French; 'panini' and 'bruschetta' from Italian. Technology and sport also introduce lots of words, such as 'ABS', from German, 'haka', from Maori, and so on. (Collins Word Exchange, How to Make a Dictionary, 2004)
  
  
• "We're not comfortable with the idea of us going about hoovering up the world's antiquities, for the benefit of our own people because we can afford to do it, recognising that often other countries have a weaker infrastructure to reinforce their heritage law," he says. (BBC News, Clamping down on the looting trade, January 14, 2004)
  
  
• Presumably then the Russians are hoovering up the immature haddock in an industrial fishery. (BBC News, Russians in illegal fishing row, April 14, 2004)
  
  
• As the white powder induces a sudden rush to her brain, she rocks back in her seat and laughs hysterically. The coke is kicking in. Within seconds she leans forward and again sniffs into a tightly rolled-up £5 note, hoovering up every last grain of the Class A drug. (WOW Report, Kate on Tape, September 15, 2005)
  
  
• I think there is a genuine concern that the NHS is hoovering up qualified nurses from developing countries. Is this something that DFID is doing work on? Is anyone monitoring how we in the North/West are hoovering up the best skilled from developing countries? (The United Kingdom Parliament, Select committee on International Development, Minutes of Evidence, December 2, 2003)
  
  
• The American banks quickly achieved a massively dominant position in Eurocurrency markets and rivaled European banks in Eurocredit and Eurobonds. They challenged European banks in hoovering up mobile dollars in the 1960s (notably from European savers and from growing revenues of oil producing countries). (Book Reviews, European Banks and the American Challenge: Competition and Cooperation in International Banking under Bretton Woods, October 2003)
  
  
• We think they were pretty efficient at hoovering up all the eggs, but John Birtwistle, who’s in charge of the grounds reckons he’ll still be finding little chocolate eggs for years to come. (Castle & Mill Newsletter, April 2005)
  
  
• The Pentagon "is hoovering up all the available capacity," said Richard DalBello, president of the Satellite Industry Association, a trade group. (Washington Post article in the San Francisco Chronicle, March 24, 2003)
  
  
• The security was enhanced by three policemen who were hoovering down doughnuts at the next table. (Ottawa Web, The Blue box, 2001)
  
  
• Caffeine was, like, my favourite thing in the entire world, and if I could, I'd still be hoovering down vats a day. (Jane Galt blog, Assymetrical Information, April 2, 2005)

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

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Incidentally, I also call vacuum flasks, vaccum flasks - not "Thermos" flasks, which is a brand name.

I call them "hoover flasks".

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I call them "hoover flasks".

Hmm.

Isn't/wasn't Goblin a brand name for a vacuum cleaner as well? Perhaps we should use that instead.

"... three policemen who were goblining down doughnuts..."

"... Russians are goblining up the immature haddock..."

This site gives a very brief history of the vacuum cleaner.

Note that the first American patent for a sweeping machine was in 1869. Then Mr. Booth got his British patent in 1901.

I must point out, however, that Spangler, a janitor in Canton, OHIO is the man who improved on those ideas to create, basically, what we have today. *bragging face*


The Hoover Company is now owned by Maytag . . . but they still, I believe, have a factory in North Canton, Ohio, along with a museum.

I'd not heard "hoovering" used as a term for fellatio . . .but given it's adoption as a term for "gobbling down" it's not a stretch to see the connection.

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Isn't/wasn't Goblin a brand name for a vacuum cleaner as well? Perhaps we should use that instead.

The Goblin brand was used until quite recently by the British Vacuum Cleaner Company (BVC) which was the company that derived from Booth's original.

The US patent for a sweeping machine is a red herring since a vacuum cleaner, even today, may use not sweeping at all. It was the hoover company that used as its slogan for many years, "It beats, as it sweeps, as it cleans". Most vacuum cleaners do not sweep.

Spangler's was, as I said, the first portable cleaner and the antecedent of today's cleaner.

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It's even the wrong name: there is no vacuum in a vacuum cleaner.

You'd prefer calling it an atmospheric depression cleaner? How about an air pressure differential cleaner? Yeah, both suggestions SUCK!!!

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there is no vacuum in a vacuum cleaner.

Neveu, could you please expand on this? Here is one definition from the dictionary, and I'd think this would be true: "A space in which the pressure is significantly lower than atmospheric pressure."

Nice links, Tinman! We have had some other vacuum discussion here, though somehow beer became a part of the thread, too. I wonder who in the world would bring up that subject here.

From the link that CW posted above (and Kalleh on January 30, 2003):

• John Thurman started a horse drawn (door to door service) vacuum system in St. Louis, similiar to Booth's. His vacuuming services were priced at $4 per visit in 1903. He invented his gasoline powered vacuum cleaner, in 1899 and some historians consider it the first motorized vacuum cleaner. Thurman's machine was patented on October 3, 1899 (patent #634,042).
  
  
• The Whirlwind: Oldest Vacuum Cleaner In The World (non-electric)
  By Robert Taber, from "Floor Care Professional", - the vacuum cleaner was invented in a Chicago basement in 1869. It was the brainchild of Ives W. McGaffey. McGaffey obtained a patent for the machine on June 5, 1869, calling it the Whirlwind. It was the first hand-pumped vacuum cleaner in the United States, a wood and canvas contraption.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

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You'd prefer calling it an atmospheric depression cleaner? How about an air pressure differential cleaner?

Why, a pneumatic floor sucker, of course.

That's fine if you want to suck a pneumatic floor!

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That's fine if you want to suck a pneumatic floor!

Or want to clean a vacuum.

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"A space in which the pressure is significantly lower than atmospheric pressure."

I abhor this diluting of vacuum. This definition would put the summit of Mt. Everest in a vacuum.

In any case, it still wouldn't include an chamber filled with turbulent air, dust, hair and legos at slightly less than atmospheric pressure.

Vacuum tubes! Now that is a vacuum appliance worthy of the name.

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I abhor this diluting of vacuum

So do I. I would say that this is a better definition of a partial vacuum. I would suggest that a better definition of a vacuum would be, "A volume where there is no measurable amount of gas or vapour"

Of course, we have never used vacuum tubes in the UK; we always use thermionic valves

IN A VACUUM

A blonde was playing Trivial Pursuit one night. It was her turn.
She rolled the die and she landed on Science & Nature. Her
question was, "If you are in a vacuum and someone calls your
name, can you hear it?"

She thought for a time and then asked, "Is it on or off?"

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Originally posted by neveu:

I abhor this diluting of vacuum.

So, lemme see if I got this right. Does Neveu abhor a vacuum? I think I've heard of something like that.

It shows he's a natural man, I suppose.