Gongoozler: meaning and definition

Are you a gongoozler? I don’t know what is that - this would be the obvious answer from most of the people as gongoozler is not a familiar word. The word is specially familiar to the people of United Kingdom and actually used for lake watchers, people who love to watch and observe lakes and canals or people who takes special interest on canals and lakes.

According to encyclopedia,

Gongoozlers are people who enjoy watching activity on the 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. Etymology

“Gongoozler” 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.

Though it is assumed that the word gongoozler is derived from the Lincolnshire dialect gawn and gooze means stare and gape in nineteenth century, but the word earns the recorded value only at the end of nineteenth or on the early stage of twentieth century when late L.T.C. Rolt used the word in his book Narrow Boat, which was a description of the canal life.

So what you think now, are you a gongoozler ?