"Hooking Up"

[Marc Velasco]

>
> Connie Eble's slang-collecting students at UNC have reported "hook up"
> meaning "to find a partner for romance or sex" since 1985 (see _Slang
> and Sociability_).
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>

Is that the source for Safire's statement:
>> But not until the 1980's did the meaning change to a less formal sexual involvement. It was first defined as ''to pick someone up at a party'' and then progressed to ''become sexually involved with; to make out.''

His On Language columns aren't that particularly sourced.

According to Eble's data, the term progressed to ~'kiss passionately'
in 1988, 1989.

Was it being used as an amorphous catch-all term by then, or did that
come later?

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