A quick blog post prompted by something I saw on a walk round Boston MA today. General Joseph Hooker (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hooker – for further information) has the unfortunate historical notoriety of giving his name to American slang for the “oldest profession”. There is a statue of Joseph Hooker oposite Boston Common (see picture below, left).
General Joseph Hooker
A little way up the hill there is an entrance to a public building with a sign outside – see picture below, right. Now a professional women might be forgiven for misunderstanding that there was a General entrance for those offering her services and perhaps she might then look for the “high class” entrance! Now that’s what I call open government.
General entrance for whom?
Now is it just me that’s amused by this or is it an illustration of how humour does not cross the Atlantic very easily?
Hey fellow bloggers, having just checked the statistics of this blog site, I have a handy hint to get your readership numbers up. Just use a keyword like hooker and boy will you get an increase in the number of hits. For those of you that visited this site, shall we say by a surreptitious route, I hope I did not disappoint too much. That’s the internet for you
I know what a ‘Hooker’ is, but what is an ‘Ashburton Park’ ? Is this Cockney Rhyming Slang as in: let’s get a Hooker for an Ashburton
I
Ashburton – I get it Ian. American readers will have no idea what this means but then again, they are not meant to.
The wiki link does throw some doubt on the veracity of the “hooker” name for a “femme fatale”
Do you think this is worthy of Private Eye and should I claim my fiver?