[Ads-l] Barry Popik on "Hooker" (1835, 1842)

[dave@wilton.net]

The 26 March 1835 use in the New York Transcript (cited below) is especially interesting. First, there is no clear indication of sex work (although I'd like to see the entire article for context). Second, it seems to reinforce the "Corlear's Hook" origin hypothesis. And third, it engages in the same wordplay on "hook" that the 25 September article from the NY Transcript has, indicating that it was the same writer/editor, and therefore the two need to be read as a pair.
 
I really wish the NY Transcript was available digitally and searchable.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "Shapiro, Fred" <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2026 7:19pm
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Barry Popik on "Hooker" (1835, 1842)



----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Father Knickerbocker <frknickerbocker at gmail.com>
To: "Bapopik at aol.com" <Bapopik at aol.com>
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2026 at 04:02:57 PM EDT
Subject: Hooker etymology

Dear Mr. Popik:

I’ve come across two early uses of “hooker” while poking through disreputable old New York newspapers and thought that you might find them of interest.

The first is from the New York Transcript, a few months before the one that you wrote about.

“Rose Haley was a regular ‘Hooker;’ she lived on the Hook; she walked the Hook – she had a hooked nose and hooked fingers and she hook’d (stole) for a living. And a lively life she led of it – drunk or dancing the whole time – seldom sober and never serious – the instant she entered an oyster cellar she was sure to ‘set the table (not) in a roar,’ but in a reel, for she always kicked it over. For one of these frolics she was committed.”
- New York Transcript, March 26, 1835.




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