10 thoughts on “Soy,”

  1. It's from an old comedy sketch, +Annabel Townsend, you're probably familiar with Bob and Doug McKenzie/The Great White North.

    I never heard it before Moranis and Thomas created those characters and I am of a similar age, class and background.

    I have seen any number of explanations for the term but everyone of them is suspect and reeks of retrofitting to me.

    I believe that they created the terms as a filler for "shithead" and "douche/douchebag" in other words just funny catchwords that weren't going to be beeped. Same as "take off", which is used exactly the same as "fuck off," you can watch those sketches and substitute the real swear words and they fit perfectly in inflection and context.

    It also ends up sounding remarkably like my adolescence, and of course looks like it as well.

  2. Thanks for this +N Jill Marsh  – I've heard a lot of references to The Great White North, but no, I;ve never heard of bob and doug McKenzie! goes to look it up
    I think the first time I heard Hosehead used was in the Weird Al Yankovic song, Canadian Idiot!

  3. TGWN was a time filler sketch from the SCTV comedy troupe.  The legend of its birth is that the show was told that they needed 90 seconds of Canadian content in order to meet regulations set by the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission.

    Their exasperated response to that request was "well, I guess we could put on toques and paid jackets and argue in front of a map of Canada…." and so one of the more inspired and affectionate commentaries of our culture was born.

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