"hook up with" in England ...

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS may support my recollection that I first heard this "hook up" in the
early 1980s.

JL

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 1:36 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "hook up with" in England ...
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> On Jan 16, 2013, at 1:24 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > but uttered by an American.
> >
> > " I visit my cousins in England every summer ... On my last night
> > there [somewhere in England, last summer], we went to a club where
> > foam was coming out of vents, and we all went into the foam and
> > danced. He [the subject's cousin's boyfriend's best friend] started
> > touching me, and we went to another section and hooked up. Then he
> > said, 'Can this be our little secret?' I asked why, and he said,
> > 'Well, because I have a girlfriend.' "
> >
> > I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about what can happen in another
> > section of a club with foam somewhere in England.
> >
> > From "Dear Margo," Boston Globe, Nov. 6, 2012.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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>
> Not originating there, though, as far as I know.  The "hooking up with"
> part, I mean--for all I know, the foam part of may indeed be unique to Old
> Blighty (and perhaps explains the Stiff Upper Lip).  The OED entry, at
> Draft additions December 2005--
>
> to hook up
> orig. and chiefly U.S. Cf. sense 4e.
>  1. intr. To get married or become involved in a romantic relationship; to
> engage in sexual activity. Usu. with with.
>
> --doesn't include British entries, FWIW, and I don't have my HDAS H-O on
> me at the moment, but I would hazard a guess that the sexually enriched
> (but foamless) "hook up with" sense is U.S. in origin.  It is just a guess,
> though.
>
> LH
>
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