Philly food file

[Dave Wilton]

>    Clippings from the Temple University files.
>
> HOAGIE
>    23 September 1953, PHILADELPHIA EVENING BULLETIN:
>    _More about the hoagie._--(A.H.)  Another legend of its
> origin is offered
> by reader Fred P. who writes:  "About 1926 my mother had a
> grocery store in
> South Philly near a railroad and hoboes used to buy these
> large Italian
> sandwiches.  Since all hoboes were known to be 'on the hoke'
> it decame known
> as a hoke sandwich; later as a hokie, and the name was
> finally changed to
> hoagie."  This might be pure "hokum," or possibly
> appropriate.  The slang
> "hoke" for a gentleman of the road comes down to us from
> hocus-pocus, via
> hokey-pokey, a term for a juggler--possibly from Ochus
> Bochus, an early
> magician.

This article is cited in _American Speech_, "The Submarine Sandwich: Lexical
Variations in a Cultural Context," Eames & Robboy, 1968. I've yet to find
another reference to the term "on the hoke." I think the explanation is
bogus.