From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Subject: Re: Sources on "Hooker" please
Date: 29 Aug 1993 02:31:47 GMT

bjb@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Bruce J. Baker) writes:
  -I gave an interested colleague a copy of the FAQ recently and he saw the
  -entry on the origin of the term "Hooker" mentioned.  He sent me the
  -following message seeking info...
  -----------------------------------------------------
  -Subj:   hooker
  -
  -Bruce . . . because of some reasons I won't go into I have been checking a
  -variety of referebce books recently to determine the origins of the word
  -hooker, to see whetehr it is in fact linked to general Hooker of the 
  -American civil war.

    [some details deleted]

  -I would, quite seriously, be very intersted to hear from anyone who can claim
  -to know the authentic origin.
  -Tony Jaques
  -----------------------------------------------------
  -He told me later he was actually writing a book on military mythology and
  -wanted to pin this one down to know whether to include/exclude it.

Hard to say.  Could be.  The following is from posts by
Bruce Tindall: 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bruce.Tindall@launchpad.unc.edu (Bruce Tindall)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: General Hooker and whores (FAQ)
Message-ID: <1992Dec29.234537.8199@samba.oit.unc.edu>
Date: 29 Dec 92 23:45:37 GMT
References: <28087@dog.ee.lbl.gov>  <1992Dec27.003545.17953@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
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>FAQ writes:
>>Tb.US Civil War Gen. Hooker is the source for a common term for streetwalkers.

Probably F, unless you have a citation.  The Oxford English Dictionary
has a quotation from 1845 using the term.  Not-yet-general Hooker would
have been about 30 years old at the time.  Was he *such* a rake that his
name would have been a byword for "whore" in Norfolk (where the quotation
is from) even though he was born in Massachusetts and lived in California?
*Could* have happened, but...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sasbmt@unx.sas.com (Bruce Tindall)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Hooker revisited
Date: 24 Jan 1993 13:09:42 -0600
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Uncle John's Bathroom Reader has a compromise answer to the "hooker"
etymological puzzle that [motto alert] sounds plausible.  While
admitting that the word was used as slang for "whore" before the 
American Civil War (as the OED says), the association of whores with
General Joseph Hooker may have given the term more widespread
popularity.  Uncle John says people began referring to prostitutes
in Washington as "Hooker's Division."

Bruce "just a hunk o', hunk o' burning effigy" Tindall
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now Bruce is a decent guy, even if every generation of
his family has written a history of the United States.
Perhaps you'd buy a copy of _Did Mowhawks Wear Mohawaks?_
to help the US trade deficit?

Terry "You've come a long way, baby" Chan