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hang a louie
DCHP-3 (Mar 2023)
Spelling variants:hang a Louie, hang a Louis, hang a louis
Non-Canadianism
This is a word that our editors have determined is not a Canadianism.
expression — Informal
turn left.
The expression is also used in the US (e.g. Oregon and New Jersey).
Quotations
1991
If we Canadians are using "hang a left" more often, we don't seem to have picked up some other bits of aging U.S. teenage slang. "Hang a louie" means to take a left turn and "hang a ralph" means to turn right.
1997
In "How to Talk American," by Jim (the Mad Monk) Crotty (Houghton Mifflin, coming in September), Louie and Roscoe come to the rescue. In American slang, to hang has long meant "to turn"; now we have to hang a Louie and to hang a Roscoe. (Although Ralph sometimes is used to signify "right," that name is more closely associated with reverse peristalsis.)
Even books with no legs will let you have a good read. Will American politics hang a Roscoe? I'm granulating.
1998
To get there, "you hang a louie off the thru-y," Sexton sings. That's Syracuse-speak for turn left off the Thruway.
1999
At rush hour, some intersections are never clear, leaving long line-ups of cars waiting to hang a louie. Les Kelman is in charge of traffic signals in the City of Toronto, and he tells me that left-turn signals are "one of the most popular requests that we get."
2010
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
You're ambitious today and thrilled with the progress you're making. You feel like you're in the zone. You're in the right place, at the right time, saying the right thing, to the right person. Right? Anyone "left" who remembers when people said things like "hang a Louis"?
2011
Where to go: The Up Wine Bar overlooks busy Queen Street as it sits atop the always-busy Garrison District Ale House. Mosey in the main doors of the Garrison, hang a louie and climb the stairway to wine heaven.
2016
The slightly heavier Tactical, with its taller sidewalls and long-travel coilovers, leans a little further, but it still has more grip and poise than anything on mud tires has a right to. Both Nomad models have incredibly quick manual steering (1.7 turns lock-to-lock), firm and communicative enough to invoke muscles and nerves you haven't used since the rise of electric power assist.Imagine taking this thing, on its Jeep-like rubber, to a track day, and embarrassing the sport compact guys in a constant, lurid state of grinning oversteer. They'd either love you for repping Honda so radly, or try to run you out of town. If the latter, hang a louie on a gravel road and drop 'em.
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