So not just another word for foodie. I’m glad we’re discussing it since I didn’t realize it’s not a compliment. I guess it’s one of those terms I read about people describing themselves but not others.
Hypothetical me, before today, loudly admiring the party host’s spice cabinet: “Wow, I didn’t know Sally is such a chowhound.”
They are hogging the food. They are hogs.
I’ve watched a lot of British TV and I’ve never come across that word. I’m a midwestern 'mercan. I guess “pig” comes to mind.
Frank Grimes: He eats like a pig!
Lenny: I don’t know. Pigs tend to chew. I’d say he eats more like a duck.
I have never heard this word in any of its senses until earlier today in the Spelling Bee thread.
This, definitely this. Different from pigs, who are just messy, hogs (may not in real life do this) eat more than their share.
That pic up there does the bird in question zero justice.
Since they can dive into the ocean, beak-first, at 60 MPH:
So for those who already had the word in their native vocabulary, can you describe the etymology, the connotations? What is a gannet originally and how did it come to mean a person who takes more than their share?
I expect like most new words, I’ll start hearing this one everywhere every day (Fawlty Towers, The Crown, AbFab, etc. etc.) so I want to be ready for it.
eta: my guess is it’s pronounced “GANN-it”, right?
This is what the term comes from:
It’s the similarity of kids demanding food from their parents to gannet chicks, at least that’s how my dad used the word.
This seems the best answer so far. A “pig” is someone who shoves their snout in the trough and chomps everything. A “hog” is described as someone who takes or uses most or all of (something) unfairly or selfishly. “Something” may be food or just about anything that is supposed to be shared.
Gannets are large seabirds (two-metre wingspan) and are perceived as greedy eaters
Wait. Is it even possible for Americans to take “over-large” portions of any food?
My first thought upon see that word was also that it was similar to “foodie.” I feel like I’ve heard it used in some Food Network shows to describe judges or contestants who really take pleasure in eating.
I tend to think of “foodie” as someone who’s more toward the gourmet-snob type, marching with the faddish ingredients (Himalayan sea salt, for example), wouldn’t dream of eating ordinary-people food or at any restaurant that doesn’t cost an ordinary person’s weekly wage per plate, and utterly adores restaurants like this:
I don’t see the glutton/gourmand type this thread is about fitting that.
This discussion reminds me of this:
I’ll admit I was a free food vulture back in the pre-pandemic era when we had a lot of catered lunchtime meetings at work, bringing leftovers home with me. I blame being raised by frugal Midwesterners. My mom is the sort of person who, if served complimentary bread at a restaurant, will wrap up any uneaten slices to bring home for later, along with all the butter packets.
There was also “bogart” as a verb – “don’t bogart the bowl of chips.” I never understood quite where that came from. Bogart as a gangster? Maybe.
Whenever I see someone at a buffet (NB: We don’t go go buffets, but we have) who’s loaded up his plate so that the plate of food is bigger than his head, I want to say ‘Dude. You know you can go back, right?’
But I just tried in today’s spelling bee and it was not accepted. I never heard of it either. It also didn’t accept gentoo (a kind of penguin).
Yes, that’s what the Spelling Bee folks were bitching about.
A pig. To be exact, a P-I-G pig.
I think Bogart hanging on to a joint instead of passing it, in some movie, though I don’t remember which one.
In any case the first context I heard it in was “don’t bogart that joint” in the 1970’s.