Robert Wrubel
Jazz musicians coined the word "hep" in the late forties. It meant something like "in the know", "cool", probably with reference to the new styles of jazz. I believe the beat poets, like Ferlinghetti, later took up "hep", with its connotations of outsiders in the know, drugged out or otherwise uncouth, and slid it over eventually to "hip". Blossom Dearie's seventies tune, "I'm hip", completes the journey of "hip" from black to white culture, and fills it out, mockingly, with what was considred avant garde then.
In my understanding, "hippie" has only a slight connection to "hip" -- in its voluntary outsider connotation. Otherwise, hippies, in their unworldliness and naivete, were almost the opposite of hip.
^^^^^^
[lbo-talk] hippies
Wed Aug 30 13:24:10 PDT 2006
"Michael J. Smith" wrote:
>
>
> Lapsing dismally into seriousness here: "hippie" was a media category --
> if memory serves, Time magazine originally came up with the term.
This is correct. It is quite remarkable how many social categories (some of them with no content whatever) were invented by Time -- and as in the case of "hippies" social reality, while never really conforming to the Time-created archetype, did edge in that direction. This was my reason, in an earlier post, for referring to "Hippies" as belonging to myth rather than history.
Carrol
^^^^ CB: Also it derives from "hip" and "hipster" , which were Black slang.
[lbo-talk] hippies Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org Thu Aug 31 09:23:01 PDT 2006
Michael H.
my father had bobby darin's 'live at the copa' album when i was a kid, liner notes included a glowing newspaper revew of the performance, writer of the article referred to audience members as hippies, if i recall picture on the album cover correctly, the audience was comprised of what appeared to be relatively affluent white folks, guess the 'hippy' reference meant 'in the know' (or would that be 'now') and 'with it' maaaaan, album was early 60s... mh
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CB: Yes, "in the know" about the "now". To be "hip" is to know what is cool, to know what is hot, to know what is happening now. Today, 2006, here, to say something like " Yea, my man hipped me to some nice 'whatever' " is understood readily. Or if somebody tells you something ,and you already know it , you say "Yea, I'm hip". Use of "hip" is not archaic in Detroit.
Hippie was evidently white people hip to what was current in Black cultural fashion. Eminem is a hippie.
[lbo-talk] hippies Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org Thu Aug 31 14:39:49 PDT 2006
I forgot to mention that "hip hop" is a derivative of "hip".
You dig ?
CB
^^^^^^ CB; Also, in this type of racy slang, one must consider that ,in general, women have bigger hips than men, as with "broad".
^^^^^^
Hip (slang)
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hip is a slang term meaning fashionably current.
Hip, like cool, does not refer to one specific quality. What is considered hip is in constant change. The term hip is said to have originated in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the early 1900s, derived from the earlier form hep. Despite research and speculation by both amateur and professional etymologists, the origins of the term hip and hep are disputed. However, many etymologists believe that the terms hip, hep and hepcat derive from the west African Wolof language word hepicat, which means "one who has his eyes open".[1]
An alternative theory traces the word's origins to those who used opium recreationally in the 19th century. Opium smokers commonly consumed the drug lying on their sides (i.e. their hips). Because opium smoking was a practice of socially-influential trend-setting individuals, the cachet it enjoyed led to the circulation of the term hip by way of a kind of synecdoche. This theory, however far-fetched, is most certainly disproven by the fact that the term hep was used until around 1940, when it was replaced in popular culture with the term hip for no apparant reason other than to make the word current again.
Early currency of the term (as the past participle hipped, meaning informed), is documented in the 1914 novel The Auction Block by Rex Beach (bolding added):
"His collection of Napoleana is the finest in this country; he is an authority on French history of that period - in fact, he's as nearly hipped on the subject as a man of his powers can be considered hipped on anything"[2] In 1947, Harry "The Hipster" Gibson wrote the song "It Ain't Hep" about the switch from hep to hip':'
Hey you know there's a lot of talk going around about this hip and hep jive. Lots of people are going around saying "hip." Lots of squares are coming out with "hep." Well the hipster is here to inform you what the jive is all about.
The jive is hip, don't say hep That's a slip of the lip, let me give you a tip Don't you ever say hep it ain't hip, NO IT AIN'T It ain't hip to be loud and wrong Just because you're feeling strong You try too hard to make a hit And every time you do you tip your mitt It ain't hip to blow your top The only thing you say is mop, mop, mop Keep cool fool, like a fish in the pool That's the golden rule at the Hipster school You find yourself talking too much Then you know you're off the track That's the stuff you got to watch Everybody wants to get into the act It ain't hip to think you're "in there" Just because of the zooty suit you wear You can laugh and shout but you better watch out Cause you don't know what it's all about, man Man you ain't hip if you don't get hip to this hip and hep jive Now get it now, look out Man get hip with the hipster, YEAH! Got to do it!