taboo attraction?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:41 AM -0500 1/8/03, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 09:52:02AM -0000, Jonathon Green wrote:
>>  'Hand job' as 'any form of deceit, misinformation' (which seems to cover the
>>  usage in question), comes on stream in '70s, e.g.
>
>There is an entry covering this rough ground in HDAS, sense 2,
>from 1972 onwards, with citations from police usage. It's defined
>there as "an act of insincere assuaging or assuring; flattery;
>blandishment", which does seem to cover the NYPD Blue example,
>though perhaps this definition is too limited; I'm sure the
>term is used more broadly in a 'misinformation' sense.
>
Aha.  My bad--I should have checked my HDAS.  Yes, the lieutenant's
use definitely fits under the "misinformation" or more specifically
"insincere assuring" sense, especially since it's evidently a term of
art among the police.  And as mentioned by other contributors in the
thread, there is a link (albeit somewhat attenuated) from the manual
masturbation sense.  Ain't metaphor grand?

larry