# hovág



## idialegre

Hello, everybody.

I am having trouble understanding the following bit of dialogue from an  old movie. The scene is a casino, and a Hungarian man is seated at the  roulette table, speaking to a French lady who does not understand him.  He has just won 1000 Francs. There are some words which I can't find in  any dictionary, and I'm wondering if they are real words or just made  up. Here is the dialogue:

"Ezer frank! Ennyit igazán nem gondoltam! Gondoltam, hogy lesz 800 vagy  900, … ezt jól kitipliztem. Tudja, nagysád, hogy hány hovágot kell az  embernek Pesten bemondani kaláberben, amíg pár pengőt nyerjen?

Bemondom a családot. De nem veled! Ja, hogy nem comprondolja?"

I can't find "hovágot" in any dictionary. Is it supposed to be funny, like "comprondolja"?

I would be very grateful for any help! Köszönöm szépen!


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## Zsanna

Having read "the book" of the card game, I hoped I would find the meaning for this word, too but no... 

The booklet gives the full list of what can be declared during this game (e.g. bella, terc, kvart) but _hovág_ doesn't appear in that list, I'm afraid. Even Google doesn't have any result for it.
I cannot say whether it's a made up/funny word or not. It just doesn't mean anything to me.

The furtherst I could stretch it is the faint hope that it may come from "Hogy vagy?" that you say meeting someone (= How are you?), which could indicate that the person had to play a lot of games with a lot of people before winning some (not much) money. (But the verb "bemondani" doesn't really allow stretching the meaning as far as this.)


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