Whoers
When I was a kid, in Brooklyn, in the 'sixties, we always pronounced the common word for a prostitute as two syllables: who-er. I had no idea how it was spelled, having never seen the word in print before my teens, as far as I can remember, but I assumed it was either whoer or hooer.
If you wanted to insult another kid you'd say, "Your mother's a whoer."
There was a transient hotel in the old neighborhood, the Hotel Oak. Everybody said it was a whoer house.
Some of the older guys in the neighborhood would talk about going to Pacific Street, in now-gentrified Boerum Hill, to pick up whoers. I have no idea where they went once they picked them up, but I do know that several of them picked up the clap.
There was a knock-knock joke that went around P.S. 217 that depended on the two-syllable pronunciation. A boy would say to a girl, "Knock-a knock-a." If the girl replied, "Who's there?" the boy would say, "No, you have to do it with an Italian accent: who's-a there-a." So the girl would say, "OK, who's-a there-a?" And the boy would say, "Me-a." And the girl would say, "Me-a who-a?" And the boy would laugh and point at the girl and say, "Ha ha, you're a whoer!"
When I finally saw the word "whore" in print I was confused. I was able to figure out from the context that it was the same word, but it seemed like a strange way to spell whoer. I wondered if it was a typo.
Since I left the old neighborhood, in 1978, first for Park Slope, then the East Village, then back to Park Slope, a snob-appeal neighborhood that's nothing like the Brooklyn of my youth, I've hardly ever heard the two-syllable pronunciation of whore. But recently, as I was walking in Bensonhurst, on my way to lunch at Tanoreen, I overheard two Brooklyn boys, maybe ten or eleven years old, talking, and one of them said, "Yeah, she's a real whoer." It was strangely comforting.
* * *
Note: Just after I posted this I decided to Google whoer and hooer. Whoer, I learned, is a term for fans of the TV show "Dr. Who," so some of those whoers may find thir way to this post. More importantly, I learned that "hooer" is common Irish slang for a prostitute, though often used as a term of endearment, a way it was never used in Brooklyn. I guess it's something like "How are you, you old bastard." Anyway, I suspect the Brooklyn pronunciation may have come from the large number of Irish in the borough.
If you wanted to insult another kid you'd say, "Your mother's a whoer."
There was a transient hotel in the old neighborhood, the Hotel Oak. Everybody said it was a whoer house.
Some of the older guys in the neighborhood would talk about going to Pacific Street, in now-gentrified Boerum Hill, to pick up whoers. I have no idea where they went once they picked them up, but I do know that several of them picked up the clap.
There was a knock-knock joke that went around P.S. 217 that depended on the two-syllable pronunciation. A boy would say to a girl, "Knock-a knock-a." If the girl replied, "Who's there?" the boy would say, "No, you have to do it with an Italian accent: who's-a there-a." So the girl would say, "OK, who's-a there-a?" And the boy would say, "Me-a." And the girl would say, "Me-a who-a?" And the boy would laugh and point at the girl and say, "Ha ha, you're a whoer!"
When I finally saw the word "whore" in print I was confused. I was able to figure out from the context that it was the same word, but it seemed like a strange way to spell whoer. I wondered if it was a typo.
Since I left the old neighborhood, in 1978, first for Park Slope, then the East Village, then back to Park Slope, a snob-appeal neighborhood that's nothing like the Brooklyn of my youth, I've hardly ever heard the two-syllable pronunciation of whore. But recently, as I was walking in Bensonhurst, on my way to lunch at Tanoreen, I overheard two Brooklyn boys, maybe ten or eleven years old, talking, and one of them said, "Yeah, she's a real whoer." It was strangely comforting.
* * *
Note: Just after I posted this I decided to Google whoer and hooer. Whoer, I learned, is a term for fans of the TV show "Dr. Who," so some of those whoers may find thir way to this post. More importantly, I learned that "hooer" is common Irish slang for a prostitute, though often used as a term of endearment, a way it was never used in Brooklyn. I guess it's something like "How are you, you old bastard." Anyway, I suspect the Brooklyn pronunciation may have come from the large number of Irish in the borough.
posted by Peter Cherches at 5:25 PM
3 Comments:
I had the same experiences as you, of course, mispronouncing the word till I was about 15. Eventually I learned to pronounce it correctly, as "ho."
I think Mailer used the word in "Naked and the Dead" also, a literary usage I can't recall elsewhere, but I am sure it's out there.
And in "Atlantic City", Burt Lancaster pronounces it that way.
Thanks for those references.
Keep 'em coming, folks.
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