| 单词 | 何时何地 |
| 释义 | 〔hooker〕In hisPersonal Memoirs Ulysses S. Grant described Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker as "a dangerous man . . . not subordinate to his superiors.” Hooker had his faults, of course.He may indeed have been insubordinate;undoubtedly he was an erratic leader.But there is one thing of which he is often accused that "Fighting Joe" Hooker certainly did not do:he did not give his name to prostitutes.According to a popular story,the men under Hooker's command during the Civil War were a particularly wild bunch.When his troops were on leave,we are told, they spent much of their time in brothels.For this reason, as the story goes,prostitutes came to be known ashookers. It is not difficult to understand how such a theory might have originated.The major general's name differs from the wordhooker only in the capital letter that begins it. And it is true that Hooker's men were at times ill-disciplined (although it seems that liquor, not women, was the main source of their difficulties with the provost marshal).However attractive this theory may be,it cannot be true.The wordhooker, with the sense "prostitute,” is in fact older than the Civil War. It appeared in the second edition (although not in the first) of John Russell Bartlett'sDictionary of Americanisms, published in 1859.Bartlett definedhooker as "a strumpet, a sailor's trull.” He also said that the word was derived from Corlear's Hook,a district in New York City,but this was only a guess.There is no evidence that the term originated in New York.Norman Ellsworth Eliason has traced this use ofhooker back to 1845 in North Carolina. He reported the usage inTarheel Talk; an Historical Study of the English Language in North Carolina to 1860, published in 1956. The fact that we have no earlier written evidence does not mean thathooker was never used to mean "prostitute" before 1845. The history ofhooker is, quite simply, murky; we do not know when or where it was first used,but we can be very certain that it did not begin with Joseph Hooker.Also, we have no firm evidence that it came from Corlear's Hook.Scholarly evidence or lack thereof notwithstanding,the late Bruce Catton, the Civil War historian, did not go so far as to exonerate completely the Union general.Although "the term ‘hooker’ did not originate during the Civil War,”wrote Catton, "it certainly became popular then.During these war years, Washington developed a large [red-light district] somewhere south of Constitution Avenue.This became known as Hooker's Division in tribute to the proclivities of General Joseph Hookerand the name has stuck ever since.”If the termhooker was derived neither from Joseph Hooker nor from Corlear's Hook, what is its derivation?It is most likely that thishooker is, etymologically, simply "one who hooks.” The term portrays a prostitute as a person who hooks, or snares, clients.尤利西斯·S·格兰特在他的个人回忆录 中把陆军少将约瑟夫·胡克描写成“一个危险人物…从不服从于他的顶头上司”。 胡克当然有他的缺点。他也许曾是一个难以屈服的人；但他无疑是一个怪癖的军官。但是“好战的乔”，胡克却因为一件他肯定没有干过的事情而屡遭指责；他从不对妓女透露他的姓名。根据一个流行故事，内战中胡克的手下有一伙特别狂野的人们。当他的队伍即将离开时，据说他们总在妓院里消磨时日。故事还说正因为如此，妓女开始被叫做hookers。 我们不难理解这样一个故事的起源的推测。这个将军的名字和hooker 只差开头的一个大写字母。 而且胡克的手下在当时确实纪律涣散（尽管看来是酒而非女人才导致了他们与宪兵司令之间的矛盾）。不管这个故事多么诱人，它不可能是真实的。事实上hooker 一词作为“妓女”的意思比内战的历史还要早。 它出现于约翰·罗素·巴特利特编纂的美国俗语词典 的第二版（尽管第一版中没有）， 出版于1859年。巴特利特把hooker 定义为“一个妓女，水手的妓女”。 他还说这个词来源于科利尔的胡克，纽约市的一个地区，但这只是一个猜想。没有证据证明这一说法源于纽约。诺曼·爱尔斯华斯·艾利森把hooker 的用法追溯到1845年的北卡罗来纳州。 他在1956年出版的北卡罗来纳州闲话； 1860年前北卡罗来纳英语历史研究 中说明了这一用法。 缺乏早期书面证据这一事实并不意味着在1845年之前hooker 没有被用作“妓女”一义。 很简单，hooker 的历史隐晦难知； 我们不知道它在何时何地被首次使用，但我们可以肯定它并不始于约瑟夫·胡克。而且我们没有确凿证据证明它来源于科利尔的胡克。不管有无学术性的证据，已故的内战历史学家布鲁斯·卡通并没有做到为联邦将军彻底开脱的地步。尽管“‘hooker’这一词语并不是来源于内战，”卡通写道，“在那之后它肯定流行了起来。在战争年代，华盛顿在宪法大街南部某个地方发展了很大的［红灯区］。人们把这里称作胡克的辖区，作为对约瑟夫·胡克将军怪癖的献礼，这个名字从此便生根发芽”。如果hooker 这一词语既不是源于约瑟夫·胡克也不来自于科利尔的胡克， 那么它的词源究竟是什么呢?从词源学上来说hooker 很有可能仅仅是“引…上钩的人”。 这一词语把妓女描绘成一个勾引或引诱客人的人 |
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