Hoen

The defining word, practice, and worldview of the chat presently known as the Newfound Glory Hole. Originated as a typo of "horny" in 2021, contracted to a verb by 2022, formalized as the noun "hoen lunch" by autumn 2022, and embedded in two of the chat's prior names — see List of chat names.

Hoen (verb, noun, adjective, interjection) is the central concept of the chat and arguably its most enduring contribution to North American workplace philosophy. It can be conjugated freely (to hoen, hoening, hoenable, hoenies, hoencession, Hoendor) and used as both an event ("a good hoen"), a moral posture ("hoen when you should be working is solidarity"), and a state of being ("hoening in spirit from Minnesota"). As of mid-May 2026, "hoen" or one of its derivatives appears in 1,419 messages across the corpus's six-year span — the highest count of any non-stopword.

Etymology

The word descends from a single typo by Kyle Derrick on 2021-10-28:

"Great, now I'm hoeny" — Kyle Derrick, 2021-10-28

The intended word was, almost certainly, horny. No correction was issued. By the next day, 2021-10-29, the typo had been adopted as deliberate by both Kyle ("Is it me or am I hoeny?") and Evan Bbbender ("I'm Hoeny"). Within a month, Cullen Conway had escalated it to the formal address: "Matt, I'm a big hoeny boy with big hoeny toys" (2021-11-20, love-tapped by Matt) — establishing that hoeny was now a stable adjective independent of its parent.

By 2021-11-23, Kyle Derrick had also produced the secondary form honey ("What doesn't make you hoeny? I think you suffer from chronic honey"), but unlike hoeny this variant did not propagate.

Contraction to "hoen"

The first attestation of the contracted verb form "hoen" is by Evan Bbbender on 2022-03-11, in a single posted message:

"Hoen" — Evan Bbbender, 2022-03-11

By autumn 2022 the noun phrase "hoen lunch" had stabilized:

"Hoen lunch today?" — Evan Bbbender, 2022-09-23

This is the founding instance of what would become a four-year (and counting) institution. See Hoen Lunch.

The progressive form hoening enters the corpus on 2022-11-10 with Matt:

"Where is the hoening tomorrow?" — Matt, 2022-11-10

By 2023 the conjugation is complete: imperative ("merry hoening", Max Lieberman, 2023-06-13), interrogative ("Anyone hoening?", Evan, 2023-09-08), and Shakespearean ("Art thou hoening?", Matt, 2023-09-22).

Embedding in the chat's identity

Hoen is so structurally important to the chat that it has been the basis of two formal renames (see List of chat names for the full sequence):

• 2022-07-30 — Weekend at Hoenies (renamed by Evan Bbbender). The chat's first hoen-derived name.
• 2023-01-14 — Oops, All Hoeny Boys (renamed by Cullen Conway). A reference to Oops! All Berries breakfast cereal, with the chat substituting itself for the marshmallow.

Neither name has lasted, but both are remembered by veteran members and are routinely cited in discussion of the chat's early-mid period. The current name Newfound Glory Hole (since 2026-05-09) does not contain hoen but is, by the chat's own internal logic, downstream of the same impulse.

Hoencession

A hoencession is a period of unusually low hoen volume. The earliest documented use is by Matt on 2025-09-05:

"We might be in a recession but we are not in a hoencession" — Matt, 2025-09-05

The term was independently re-derived by Evan Bbbender on 2026-02-12 ("Are we in a hoencession?"), in a thread that produced several of the chat's most-loved hoen artifacts including the brief but devout Hoendor tradition and Daniel Miller's "Light the hoen beacons" (2026-02-12).

Six years in numbers

Counts are approximate and rounded; a precise per-year breakdown is in scripts/build_content.py. The trend is unambiguously up-and-to-the-right.

See also

• Hoen Lunch
• List of chat names
• Hoendor
• Hoencession
• Hoening
• Mmm alcohol
• Kyle Derrick (originator)
• Evan Bbbender (verber-in-chief)