different between gunzel vs gricer

English

Etymology

Origin uncertain; possibly from gunsel (“stupid or contemptible fellow, creep; young man kept for homosexual purposes, catamite”), from Yiddish ??????? (gendzl, “gosling”), from Middle High German gensel,diminutive of gans (“goose”) (compare German Gänslein (“gosling”), from Gans (“goose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *??h?éns (“goose”)).

There is an unverified suggestion that the word was first used in the 1960s by staff of the Sydney Tramway Museum in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to describe shabbily dressed trainspotters. They were apparently influenced by the word gunsel (“a gun-carrying hoodlum”), which had been popularized in the film The Maltese Falcon (1941) based on the 1929 novel of the same name by American author Dashiell Hammet (1894–1961).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /???nzl?/
• Hyphenation: gun?zel

Noun

gunzel (plural gunzels)

1. (Australia) A railway or tram enthusiast; particularly (formerly derogatory) one who is overly enthusiastic or foolish.
2. (Australia, by extension) An enthusiast or geek with a specific interest.
3. (US) Alternative spelling of gunsel.

Synonyms

• (railway or tram enthusiast): ferroequinologist (humorous, nonstandard), foamer, railfan (US), trainspotter

Verb

gunzel (third-person singular simple present gunzels, present participle gunzelling, simple past and past participle gunzelled)

1. (intransitive) To engage in railway enthusiast activities.

References

Further reading

• railfan on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Etymology

From grice, supposed plural of grouse (on analogy to mouse/mice), likening a person who identifies railway locomotives to a sportsman who bags grouse.

Noun

gricer (plural gricers)

1. (informal) A railway enthusiast, a trainspotter.
   • 1981 December 10, Feedback, New Scientist, Volume 92, Issue 1283, page 723,

     The train was stuffed full of journalists and gricers, as railway enthusiasts are pejoratively termed. Some of the gricers, earnest, fresh-faced young men, almost to a person, who cut their milk teeth on Hornby trains, had booked on this train two years ago.

Synonyms

• (railway enthusiast): ferroequinologist, gunzel, railfan, trainspotter

Related terms

• grice