[Ads-l] hook up

Dave Wilton dave at WILTON.NET
Fri Oct 25 12:28:48 UTC 2019


Take a look at Green's Dictionary of Slang. Both these senses are much older than I ever suspected.

The sexual sense:

to form a relationship with; sexual or otherwise.

1878–9	[US]	A. Garcia Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 77: Why don’t you hook up to her yourself, if you are so stuck on her?

1900	[US]	A.H. Lewis ‘Garrote’ in Sandburrs 133: She hooks up wit’ another skate.

And the commercial sense:

to introduce, to bring two parties together in a commercial transaction, to connect.

1945		J.H. Cummings Fatal Pay-off 56: Brandt wondered if the Ford could be tabbed. Madden wasn’t sure. ‘Not unless we can hook it up with two big, light-haired men.’.

Green's lists a lot of more specific senses.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Wilson Gray
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2019 12:19 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] hook up

> Related to transitive “to hook (someone) up (with)”?

Sounds good to me.

On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 10:34 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Related to transitive “to hook (someone) up (with)”?  E.g., from 
> Googling,
>
> Can you hook me up with {Pandora/some weed/a good cardiologist/some 
> free concert tickets}?
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Oct 24, 2019, at 9:48 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Cf. the neo-blaxploitation flick, "I Got the Hook-Up," from 1998.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Got_the_Hook-Up
> >
> > In the movie, the title is used as the slogan of their sales-pitch 
> > by two street-hustlers who have lucked into a mis-delivered case of 
> > brand-new cellphones. That is, they have the means to provide the 
> > boyz in the 'hood with the ability to _hook up_, in the sense of "to 
> > become informed or
> clued
> > in; to get hipped to the haps" via (I still say "vie-uh," but, here 
> > of late, "vee-uh" seems to be gaining traction) cellphone.  My WAG 
> > is that this kind of "hook-up," of black origin, is only 
> > coincidentally of the
> same
> > shape as the older _hook up_ "engage in sex," originally white, but 
> > now universal, as evidenced on Jerry Springer.
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 7:42 AM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> 'To inform; clue in."
> >>
> >> Chris Cuomo on CNN: "So hook me up, Fahrenthold. We're always on 
> >> here pumping your reporting. What are you looking at next?"
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint 
> > to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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