Hip (slang)

Last updated

Hip is a slang for fashionably current [1] and in the know. To be hip is to have "an attitude, a stance" in opposition to the "unfree world", [2] or to what is square or prude. Being hip is also about being informed about the latest ideas, styles, and developments. [3]

Contents

Hip, like cool , does not refer to one specific quality. What is considered hip is continuously changing.

Origin of term

The term hip is recorded in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the early 1900s. In the 1930s and 1940s, it had become a common slang term, particularly in the African-American-dominated jazz scene.

The origin of hip is unknown; there are many explanations for the etymology of hip, but they remain unproven. [4] Research and speculation by both amateur and professional etymologists suggest that "hip" is derived from an earlier form, hep but that is disputed. 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". [5] [6] Some etymologists reject this, tracing the origin of this putative etymology to David Dalby, a scholar of African languages who tentatively suggested the idea in the 1960s and some have even adopted the denigration "to cry Wolof" as a general dismissal or belittlement of etymologies they believe to be based on "superficial similarities" rather than documented attribution. [7] [8]

Alternative theories trace the word's origins to those who used opium recreationally. Because opium smokers commonly took the drug lying on their sides or on the hip, the term became a coded reference to the practice and 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. [9] [ citation needed ] This etymology is rejected by Sheidlower. [7] Slang dictionaries of past centuries give a term hip or hyp meaning melancholy or bored, shortened from the word hypochondriac. This usage, more prevalent around 1800, was virtually extinct by 1900.

Development

The word hip in the sense of "aware, in the know" is first attested in a 1902 cartoon by Tad Dorgan and first appeared in print in a 1904 novel by George Vere Hobart, Jim Hickey, A Story of the One-Night Stands, where an African-American character uses the slang phrase "Are you hip?" [10] [11] Early currency of the term (as the past participle hipped, meaning informed) is further documented in the 1914 novel The Auction Block by Rex Beach "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". [12]

After the Second World War, the term moved into general parlance. The English humorist P. G. Wodehouse has his aristocratic narrator, Bertie Wooster, use the term "get hep" in his 1946 novel Joy in the Morning. Jack Kerouac described his mid-century contemporaries as "the new American generation known as the 'Hip' (the Knowing)". [13] 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!

The 1936 drama film August Week End uses the term "hip" in dialogue. Norman Mailer, one of the voices of the Hipster-Movement, formulated the content-related interpretation of the terms "hip" and "square" in an Essay in 1957 as opposites in attitudes towards life,

Hip - Square / wild - practical / romantic - classic / instinct - logic / Negro - white / inductive - programmatic / the relation - the name / spontaneous - orderly / perverse - pious / midnight - noon / nihilistic - authoritarian / associative - sequential / a question - an answer / obeying the form of the curve - living in the cell of the square / self - society / crooks - cops / free will - determinism.
[14]

See also

Related Research Articles

A slang is a vocabulary of an informal register, common in verbal conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hippie</span> Person associated with 1960-1975 counterculture

A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during or around 1964 and spread to different countries around the world. The word hippie came from hipster and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term hippie was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier.

Polari is a form of slang or cant historically used in Britain by some actors, circus and fairground showmen, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals and sex workers, and particularly among the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced to at least the 19th century and possibly as early as the 16th century. Polari has a long-standing connection with Punch and Judy street puppeteers, who traditionally used it to converse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beatnik</span> Media stereotype based on characteristics of the Beat Generation

Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms of art, such as literature, poetry, music, and painting. They also experimented with spirituality, drugs, sexuality, and travel. The term "beatnik" was coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen in 1958, as a derogatory label for the followers of the Beat Generation, a group of influential writers and artists who emerged during the era of the Silent Generation's maturing, from as early as 1946, to as late as 1963, but the subculture was at its most prevalent in the 1950s. This lifestyle of anti-consumerism may have been influenced their generation's fuel of living in extream poverty in the Great Depression during their informitave years, seeing slightly older people serve in WW II and being influeced by the rise of left-wing politics and the spread of Communism. The name was inspired by the Russian suffix "-nik", which was used to denote members of various political or social groups. The term "beat" originally was used by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to describe his social circle of friends and fellow writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. Kerouac said that "beat" had multiple meanings, such as "beaten down", "beatific", "beat up", and "beat out". He also associated it with the musical term "beat", which referred to the rhythmic patterns of jazz, a genre that influenced many beatniks.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary, and accent features, AAVE is employed by middle-class Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum. However, in formal speaking contexts, speakers tend to switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while retaining elements of the non-standard accent. AAVE is widespread throughout the United States, but is not the native dialect of all African Americans, nor are all of its speakers African American.

Square is slang for a person who is conventional and old-fashioned, similar to a fuddy-duddy. This sense of the word "square" originated with the American jazz community in the 1940s in reference to people out of touch with musical trends. Older senses of the term square, referring positively to someone or something honest and upstanding, date back to the 16th century.

A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. It may also be called a cryptolect, argot, pseudo-language, anti-language or secret language. Each term differs slightly in meaning; their uses are inconsistent. Richard Rorty defines cant by saying that "'Cant', in the sense in which Samuel Johnson exclaims, 'Clear your mind of cant,' means, in other words, something like that which 'people usually say without thinking, the standard thing to say, what one normally says'." In Heideggerian terms it is what "das Man" says.

Honky is a derogatory term used to refer to white people, predominantly heard in the United States.

The term man and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age. In traditional usage, man itself refers to the species or to humanity (mankind) as a whole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cracker (term)</span> Racial epithet towards white people

Cracker, sometimes cracka or white cracker, is a racial epithet directed towards white people, used especially with regard to poor rural whites in the Southern United States. Although commonly a pejorative, it is also used in a neutral context, particularly in reference to a native of Florida or Georgia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hipster (contemporary subculture)</span> Subculture defined by claims to authenticity and uniqueness

The 21st-century hipster is a subculture. Fashion is one of the major markers of hipster identity. Members of the subculture typically do not self-identify as hipsters, and the word hipster is often used as a pejorative for someone who is pretentious or overly concerned with appearing trendy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hipster (1940s subculture)</span> American jazz subculture

The terms hipster or hepcat, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jump blues and jazz, in particular bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster subculture adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following features: Conk hairstyles, loose fitting or oversize suits with loud colors, jive talk slang, use of tobacco, cannabis, and other recreational drugs, relaxed attitude, love for Jazz or Jump blues music, and styles of swing dancing, especially Lindy hop.

According to lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, the terms hipster and hippie derive from the word hip and the synonym hep, whose origins are disputed. The words hip and hep first surfaced in slang around the beginning of the 20th century and spread quickly, making their first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1904. At the time, the words were used to mean "aware" and "in the know". In the late 1960s, African language scholar David Dalby popularized the idea that words used in American slang could be traced back to West Africa. He claimed that hipi was the source for both hip and hep. Sheidlower, however, disputes Dalby's assertion that the term hip comes from Wolof origins.

Jejemon is a popular culture phenomenon in the Philippines. The Philippine Daily Inquirer describes Jejemons as a "new breed of hipster who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own subculture and fashion."

ain't is a negative inflection for am, is, are, has, and have in informal English. In some dialects, it is also used for do, does, did, and will. The development of ain't for the various forms of be, have, will and do occurred independently, at different times. The use of ain't for the forms of be was established by the mid-18th century and for the forms of have by the early 19th century.

Jive talk, also known as Harlem jive or simply Jive, the argot of jazz, jazz jargon, vernacular of the jazz world, slang of jazz, and parlance of hip is an African-American Vernacular English slang or vocabulary that developed in Harlem, where "jive" (jazz) was played and was adopted more widely in African-American society, peaking in the 1940s.

Basic is a slang term in American popular culture used pejoratively to describe middle class white people, especially women, who are perceived to prefer mainstream products, trends, and music. "Basic bitch" originated in hip hop culture and rose in popularity through rap music, songs, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014. Their male counterparts are usually termed "bros". Similar labels to "basic bitch" or "airhead" in other English-speaking countries include contemporary British "Essex girls" and "Sloane Rangers", and Australian "haul girls" known for their love of shopping for designer gear, and uploading videos of their purchases on YouTube.

Cheugy is an American neologism coined in 2013 as a pejorative description of lifestyle trends associated with the early 2010s. This aesthetic has been described as "the opposite of trendy" or "trying too hard". The term has been used positively by some who identify with the aesthetic.

References

  1. ↑ B. Kirkpatrick ed., Roget's Thesaurus (1998) p. 570
  2. ↑ Ford, Phil (November 2008). "Hip Sensibility in an Age of MassCounterculture". Jazz Perspectives. 2 (2): 122. doi:10.1080/17494060802373382 . Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  3. ↑ "the definition of hip". Dictionary.com. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  4. ↑ "The history of the word 'hip' | OxfordWords blog". OxfordWords blog. June 10, 2015. Archived from the original on June 13, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  5. ↑ James Campbell, This is the Beat Generation (1999) p. 36
  6. ↑ Holloway, Joseph E. The Impact of African Languages on American English. Retrieved on 2006.10.05. Archived April 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  7. 1 2 Sheidlower, Jesse (December 8, 2004), Crying Wolof: Does the word hip really hail from a West African language?, Slate Magazine , retrieved May 7, 2007.
  8. ↑ e.g. Grant Barrett, "Humdinger of a Bad Irish Scholar Archived 2008-10-13 at the Wayback Machine ", in "The Lexicographer's Rules", 2007.11.09
  9. ↑ P. Lee, Opium Culture (2006) p. 2
  10. ↑ Jonathan Lighter, Random House Dictionary of Historical Slang
  11. ↑ Hobart, George (1904). Jim Hickey: A Story of the One-Night Stands. New York: G. W. Dillingham Company. p. 15.
  12. ↑ Rex Beach, (1914) The Auction Block, New York: A. L. Burt, pp. 91–92.
  13. ↑ James Campbell, This is the Beat Generation (1999) p. 84
  14. ↑ Norman Mailer: The Hip and the Square: 1. The List. In: Advertisements for Myself. Putnam’s, New York 1959

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.