Gongoozlers are people who watch canals in the United Kingdom. The term is also often used in a more general way to describe those who have an interest in canals and the canal life, but do not actively participate.

The word may have been canal workers’ slang for an observer standing apparently idle on the towpath. Although it was certainly used derisively in the past there is only very mild derision attached to the term today, and it is regularly used, perhaps with a little irony, by gongoozlers to describe themselves and their hobby.

The word "gongoozler" and the derived words "gongoozling" and to gongoozle may have arisen from words in Lincolnshire dialect: gawn and gooze, both meaning to stare or gape.

Although it might be presumed that such an expression would date from the nineteenth century, when canals were at their peak, the word is only recorded from the end of that century or the early twentieth. It was given wider use by the late L T C Rolt , who used it in his book about canal life, Narrow Boat, in 1944.

See also

• Birdwatchers
• Trainspotter

References

• World Wide Words
• www.gongoozler.org - the online presence of the Canal Card Collectors Circle