HOOKER.

So I’m reading the first chapter of From The Land of Silent People, a 1942 book by the American journalist Robert St John, a remarkable man who spent fifty years as a war correspondent while remaining a lifelong pacifist and died last year at the age of 100. The scene is Belgrade, March 1941; the Yugoslav government has just signed a shameful pact with Nazi Germany and the assembled reporters are packing their bags and arguing over “where the next crisis was likely to break out,” when St. John gets information (at 2:30 AM) that army tanks are taking up positions around the city. He hops in his car and heads downtown to see what’s happening, but he and his chauffeur are stopped by soldiers “with bayonets held at belly level,” dragged out, and “marched into a small park” where they are told to sit down and shut up.

The little park was filled with a select gathering. It was nearly three o’clock… Two night club entertainers in backless dresses that swept along the ground. At least a dozen women of easy virtue, groggy from their night’s work. A few girls of semipro status in various stages of intoxication. One man in spotless evening dress with a beautiful French girl who insisted: “You can’t do this to us.”…

Just then I saw a squad of soldiers bringing in a familiar figure. Milan! Good old Milan, our favorite barman at the Srpski Kralj Hotel. Milan was one of my best sources of information. If anyone knew the answers, he did. We went off into the bushes and had a hooker or two…

Alas for salacious speculation, the sentence goes on: “…out of a bottle of slivovich Milan always carried in his hip pocket for emergencies, and then he opened up.” I was unfamiliar with that usage of “hooker,” and this was certainly a dramatic way to discover it. It’s in the Cassell Dictionary of Slang as [19C+] (US) ‘a drink, a measure of liquor,’ and it’s even in the American Heritage and Merriam-Webster’s; I don’t know how I missed it. I’m wondering if it’s still current. Any of you readers know/use it?

Comments

  1. For a relatively obscure word, “hooker” has far too many meanings. Maybe we should deprecate some of them.

  2. My God! I just learned this word myself! I’m in a psychology Master’s program, and my Stats professor is a wonderful old fellow, 80 years’ worth of sarcasm and sophistry, and a WWII veteran. He used the phrase “a hooker of gin” to mean what I would call “a slug of gin” (or similar). Since my background’s in linguistics, I had to ask him about it, but he was surprised to hear I didn’t know it.
    As far as I can recall, this is not a current usage, but an archaism. I’ve never heard anyone other than Dr. Hunter say it.

  3. David L. Gold says

    A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary lists hooker ‘A glass of whiskey, a dram; usu. with qualifying word (e. g. stiff), a drink (of brandy, etc.)’, with quotations from 1833 to 1955.

    The word in that sense must therefore be in the second and third editions of the OED too.

  4. Reggie Cunningham describes the invention of the pickleback. True story.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zUDT0HeB3M

  5. “Eve Black enjoyed nothing better than a few hookers of gin and a romp with a stranger.” From the movie “The Three Faces of Eve” 1957 a true story about multiple personalities that won Joanne Woodward, wife of Paul Newman, an academy award for best actress. I was drawn to this expression the minute I heard it. Love the English language in all it’s many forms from old and modern slang to old Appalachian terms to the urbane and intellectual stuffiness of Ivy league professors.

  6. A great quote, and I agree!

  7. Here are the citations from the OED entry (unchanged since 1976):

    1833 J. Kennedy Geordie Chalmers iv. 45 Ye’ll be nane the waur o’ a hooker after yer fricht.
    1865 W. H. L. Tester Poems 133 Sandy liket a hooker, an’ brawlie I kent, The drap creatur’ wad set him a speakin’.
    1887 Grip (Toronto) 21 May 12/2 We went in and were served out with a pretty stiff hooker each.
    1906 H. Green At Actors’ Boarding House 62 A stiff hooker of whiskey, and then another had the expected effect.
    1927 Black Mask Feb. 37/1 It took a stiff hooker of whiskey and a lot of words to thaw her into understanding.
    1930 H. Craddock Savoy Cocktail Bk. i. 97 The Juice of 1 Lemon. 4 Hookers Whiskey.
    1939 C. Morley Kitty Foyle xxvii. 268 She gave me such a hooker of brandy I went right to sleep.
    1955 ‘T. P. Kelley’ Black Donnellys 63 Danny was quiet enough until he got about six hookers under his belt.

    “Origin unknown.”

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