The Lake Gang is the name for a dubious company that decent people usually ignore. This unusual expression, which is not often found in use today, was once quite popular.
The meaning of the word "gang"
To gain a deeper understanding of what the "watering gang" means, you will have to consider both components of this two-part idiom. If everything is clear with the watering can, then with the gang things are no longer so simple. This word has two meanings.
A gang - this is how a tub or a small tub is called in Russian, sometimes a bath basin with two handles. We can say that this is a cross between a basin and a bucket in width and height. The shake is used in the bathhouse. It is usually made of wood or metal. This is a somewhat outdated word, today the gangs are more often called cans.
The word "gang" is of Turkic origin. Interestingly, in modern Turkish it means a river barge, and not bath accessories.
Another meaning of the word "gang" is a criminal group that has gathered to carry out illegal or hooligan activities. Sometimes groups of children or adolescents are also called a gang, clearly giving this word a negative connotation. If they say that a gang has gathered, then they mean that the group clearly has bad intentions.
The paradox of word formation in the "gang-lake"
Despite the fact that the meaning of "gang-lake" is closer to the second sense of the word "gang", that is, we are talking about a group of persons with reprehensible intentions or interests, the second part of this idiom appeared by association, rather, with the first meaning. Indeed, it is much easier to remember a watering can when it comes to a basin for water than a criminal group.
It turns out that the meaning of the phraseological unit "gang-lake" is much softer than that of a simple "gang". When they say "the watering gang", they seem to want to emphasize that the interpretation is ironic, that the watering gang has gathered a little stupid and dubious.
The following words are usually referred to the synonyms of the expression "watering gang": shop, gang-brothers, company, kompasha.
Possible origin story
Linguists cannot come to a consensus about how it was possible to associate a gang, as a bathhouse, with criminal gangs. But there is a theory on this score. If you think about it, "vessel" and "utensil" have a common origin, and vessels are often called boats and ships. It is believed that the words "ship" and "dishes" also have a common origin.
In Bulgarian, a boat was called a gang in which the Zaporozhye Cossacks went to trade. Merchant bands were often plundered by pirates and turned into pirate ships. Perhaps that is why they began to call a gang first a gang of pirates, and then any criminal group.
Also, the gang was named after the boat, by analogy with the crockery, which received its name from the crockery. Or vice versa.
