Etymology of hippie
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| + | This article discusses the [[etymology]] of the word ''[[hippie]]''. | ||
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| + | ==History== | ||
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| + | According to lexicographer [[Jesse Sheidlower]], the terms ''hipster'' and ''hippie'' derive from the word ''[[hip (slang)|hip]]'' and the synonym ''hep'', whose origins are unknown. 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'' (a word in the [[Wolof language]] meaning "to open one's eyes") was the source for both ''hip'' and ''hep''. Sheidlower, however, disputes Dalby's assertion that the term ''hip'' comes from Wolof origins. | ||
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| + | During the [[Jive (dance)|jive]] era of the late 1930s and early 1940s, African-Americans began to use the term ''hip'' to mean "sophisticated, fashionable and fully up-to-date",. [[Harry Gibson]] added the term "the Hipster" to his [[Harlem]] stage act in 1944, and in his later autobiography, says he coined it for that purpose. In the 1970s, Gibson remade his act to appeal to contemporary hippies, and is known as the 'original hippie'. The form ''hippie'' is attested in print as jazz slang in 1952, but is agreed in later sources to have been in use from the 1940s. Reminiscing about late 1940s Harlem in his 1964 autobiography, [[Malcolm X]] referred to the word ''hippy'' as a term that [[African American]]s used to describe a specific type of [[White people|white man]] who "acted more [[Negro]] than Negroes". | ||
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| + | In [[Greenwich Village]], [[New York City]] by the end of the 1950s, young [[counterculture]] advocates were widely called ''hips'' because they were considered "in the know" or "cool", as opposed to being ''[[Square (slang)|square]]''. One of the earliest attestations of the term ''hippy'' is found in the "Dictionary of Hip Words and Phrases" included in the liner notes for the 1959 comedy album ''[[How to Speak Hip]]'', a parody based on the burgeoning Greenwich Village scene. As opposed to the ''hipster'', defined as "A fully paid-up member of Hip society", a ''hippy'' is "A junior member of Hip society, who may know the words, but hasn't fully assimilated the proper attitude." It also defines ''hippie-dip'' as "Derogatory word for hippy." | ||
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| + | In a 1961 essay, [[Kenneth Rexroth]] of San Francisco used both the terms ''hipster'' and ''hippies'' to refer to young people participating in African American or [[Beatnik]] nightlife. | ||
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| + | In 1963, [[the Orlons]], an African-American singing group from [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]] released the [[Soul music|soul]] dance song "South Street", which included the lyrics "Where do all the hippies meet? [[South Street (Philadelphia)|South Street]], South Street...The hippest street in town". Nevertheless, since many heard it as "hippies", that use was promoted. | ||
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| + | "The Hippies" was also the name of a mixed African American and [[White people|white]] soul singing group on the Orlons' record label, Cameo-Parkway. Another use around the same time was on the 1963 [[Freddy Cannon]] single on [[Swan Records]], "Do What The Hippies Do". | ||
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| + | == Modern use == | ||
| + | /<small>Numerous theories abound as to the origin of this word. One of the most credible involves the beatniks, who abandoned North Beach, San Francisco, to flee commercialism in the early 1960s. Many of them moved to the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, where they were idolized and emulated by the young university students who lived in the neighborhood. The beats (the hip people) started calling these students "hippies", or younger versions of themselves. Actually, the counterculture seldom called itself hippies; it was the media and straight society who popularized the term. More often, we called ourselves freaks or heads. Not until later did we begin calling ourselves hippies, and by then we were "aging hippies". An alternate spelling seldom used in the United States by people in the know was hippy, but it was spelled that way in England.</small> --John Bassett McCleary| | ||
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| + | In a June 11, 1963 syndicated column by [[Dorothy Killgallen]], she wrote "New York hippies have a new kick – baking marijuana in cookies". | ||
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| + | The term "hippie" appears in a ''[[New York Times]]'' book review of April 21, 1964 entitled "Is The Pentagon Threatened by Civilians on Horseback?" where it said "Mr. Raymond felicitously gives us a hippie link between the present and the past." | ||
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| + | The term appeared numerous times in the ''[[Village Voice]]'' on September 10, 1964 in an article entitled "Baby Beatniks Spark Bar Boom on East Side." | ||
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| + | Another early appearance of the term ''hippies'' was on November 27, 1964 in a ''[[TIME Magazine]]'' article about a 20-year old's drug use scandalizing the town of [[Darien, Connecticut]]: "The trouble is that in a school of 1,018 pupils so near New York there is bound to be a fast set of hard-shell hippies like Alpert [the 20 year old] who seem utterly glamorous to more sheltered types." Shortly afterwards, on December 6, 1964, in an article entitled "[[Jean Shepherd]] Leads His Flock On A Search For Truth", ''New York Times'' journalist Bernard Weinraub wrote about the Limelight coffeehouse, quoting Shepherd as using the term ''hippie'' while describing the beatnik fashions that had newly arrived in [[Greenwich Village]] from Queens, Staten Island, Newark, Jersey City, and Brooklyn. And the [[Zanesville, Ohio|Zanesville]] ''Times Recorder'', on January 1, 1965, ran a story questioning how society could tolerate a new underground New York newspaper started by [[Ed Sanders]] called ''The Marijuana Times'' — whose first issue (of only two, dated January 30) it directly quoted as saying: "''The latest Pot statistics compiled through the services of the'' Hippie ''Dope Exchange, will be printed in each issue of the Marijuana Newsletter.''" | ||
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| + | Another early appearance was in the liner notes to the [[Rolling Stones]] album, ''[[The Rolling Stones, Now!]]'', released in February 1965 and written by the band's then-manager, [[Andrew Loog Oldham]]. One sentence of the notes reads, "Their music is Berry-chuck and all the Chicago hippies..." and another sentence from the same source reads, "Well, my groobies, what about Richmond, with its grass green and hippy scene from which the Stones untaned." | ||
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| + | Rev. Howard R. Moody, of the [[Judson Memorial Church]] in Greenwich Village, was quoted in the June 6, 1965 ''New York Times'' as saying "Every hippy is somebody's square. And don't you ever forget it." | ||
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| + | By around this time, "hippies" were being noted on the U.S. West Coast as well. The first clearly contemporary use of the word "hippie" appeared in print on September 5, 1965. In an article entitled "A New Haven for Beatniks," [[San Francisco]] [[Journalism|journalist]] [[Michael Fallon]] wrote about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse, using the term ''hippie'' to refer to the new generation of [[beatnik]]s who had moved from [[North Beach, San Francisco|North Beach]] into the [[Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California|Haight-Ashbury]] district of San Francisco. Fallon reportedly came up with the name by condensing [[Norman Mailer]]'s use of the word ''hipster'' into ''hippie''. | ||
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| + | Use of the term ''hippie'' did not become widespread in the [[mass media]] until early 1967, after ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' [[columnist]] [[Herb Caen]] began referring to ''hippies'' in his daily columns. | ||
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| + | ''New York Times'' editor and usage writer [[Theodore M. Bernstein]] said the paper changed the spelling from ''hippy'' to ''hippie'' to avoid the ambiguous description of clothing as ''hippy fashions''. | ||
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| + | == Pejorative use == | ||
| + | To the late 1950s/early 1960s [[Beat Generation]], the flood of mid-1960s youths adopting [[beatnik]] sensibilities appeared as a cheap, [[Mass production|mass-produced]] imitation. By Beat Generation standards, these newcomers were not [[Coolness|cool]] enough to be considered [[Hip (slang)|hip]], so they used the term ''hippie'' with disdain. [[American conservatism|American conservatives]] of the period used the term hippie as an insult toward young adults whom they considered [[Patriotism|unpatriotic]], uninformed, and naive.{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} [[Ronald Reagan]], who was governor of [[California]] during the height of the hippie movement, described a hippie as a person who "dresses like [[Tarzan]], has hair like [[Jane Porter (Tarzan)|Jane]], and smells like [[Cheeta]]." Others used the term ''hippie'' in a more personal way to disparage long-haired, unwashed, unkempt drug users. In contemporary conservative settings, the term hippie is often used to allude to [[slacker]] attitudes, irresponsibility, participation in [[recreational drug use]], activism in causes considered relatively trivial, and [[Left wing politics|leftist]] political leanings (regardless of whether the individual was actually connected to the hippie subculture). An example is its use by the [[South Park]] cartoon character, [[Eric Cartman]]. | ||
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Revision as of 10:18, 21 March 2013
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This article discusses the etymology of the word hippie.
History
According to lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, the terms hipster and hippie derive from the word hip and the synonym hep, whose origins are unknown. 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 (a word in the Wolof language meaning "to open one's eyes") was the source for both hip and hep. Sheidlower, however, disputes Dalby's assertion that the term hip comes from Wolof origins.
During the jive era of the late 1930s and early 1940s, African-Americans began to use the term hip to mean "sophisticated, fashionable and fully up-to-date",. Harry Gibson added the term "the Hipster" to his Harlem stage act in 1944, and in his later autobiography, says he coined it for that purpose. In the 1970s, Gibson remade his act to appeal to contemporary hippies, and is known as the 'original hippie'. The form hippie is attested in print as jazz slang in 1952, but is agreed in later sources to have been in use from the 1940s. Reminiscing about late 1940s Harlem in his 1964 autobiography, Malcolm X referred to the word hippy as a term that African Americans used to describe a specific type of white man who "acted more Negro than Negroes".
In Greenwich Village, New York City by the end of the 1950s, young counterculture advocates were widely called hips because they were considered "in the know" or "cool", as opposed to being square. One of the earliest attestations of the term hippy is found in the "Dictionary of Hip Words and Phrases" included in the liner notes for the 1959 comedy album How to Speak Hip, a parody based on the burgeoning Greenwich Village scene. As opposed to the hipster, defined as "A fully paid-up member of Hip society", a hippy is "A junior member of Hip society, who may know the words, but hasn't fully assimilated the proper attitude." It also defines hippie-dip as "Derogatory word for hippy."
In a 1961 essay, Kenneth Rexroth of San Francisco used both the terms hipster and hippies to refer to young people participating in African American or Beatnik nightlife.
In 1963, the Orlons, an African-American singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania released the soul dance song "South Street", which included the lyrics "Where do all the hippies meet? South Street, South Street...The hippest street in town". Nevertheless, since many heard it as "hippies", that use was promoted.
"The Hippies" was also the name of a mixed African American and white soul singing group on the Orlons' record label, Cameo-Parkway. Another use around the same time was on the 1963 Freddy Cannon single on Swan Records, "Do What The Hippies Do".
Modern use
/Numerous theories abound as to the origin of this word. One of the most credible involves the beatniks, who abandoned North Beach, San Francisco, to flee commercialism in the early 1960s. Many of them moved to the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, where they were idolized and emulated by the young university students who lived in the neighborhood. The beats (the hip people) started calling these students "hippies", or younger versions of themselves. Actually, the counterculture seldom called itself hippies; it was the media and straight society who popularized the term. More often, we called ourselves freaks or heads. Not until later did we begin calling ourselves hippies, and by then we were "aging hippies". An alternate spelling seldom used in the United States by people in the know was hippy, but it was spelled that way in England. --John Bassett McCleary|
In a June 11, 1963 syndicated column by Dorothy Killgallen, she wrote "New York hippies have a new kick – baking marijuana in cookies".
The term "hippie" appears in a New York Times book review of April 21, 1964 entitled "Is The Pentagon Threatened by Civilians on Horseback?" where it said "Mr. Raymond felicitously gives us a hippie link between the present and the past."
The term appeared numerous times in the Village Voice on September 10, 1964 in an article entitled "Baby Beatniks Spark Bar Boom on East Side."
Another early appearance of the term hippies was on November 27, 1964 in a TIME Magazine article about a 20-year old's drug use scandalizing the town of Darien, Connecticut: "The trouble is that in a school of 1,018 pupils so near New York there is bound to be a fast set of hard-shell hippies like Alpert [the 20 year old] who seem utterly glamorous to more sheltered types." Shortly afterwards, on December 6, 1964, in an article entitled "Jean Shepherd Leads His Flock On A Search For Truth", New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub wrote about the Limelight coffeehouse, quoting Shepherd as using the term hippie while describing the beatnik fashions that had newly arrived in Greenwich Village from Queens, Staten Island, Newark, Jersey City, and Brooklyn. And the Zanesville Times Recorder, on January 1, 1965, ran a story questioning how society could tolerate a new underground New York newspaper started by Ed Sanders called The Marijuana Times — whose first issue (of only two, dated January 30) it directly quoted as saying: "The latest Pot statistics compiled through the services of the Hippie Dope Exchange, will be printed in each issue of the Marijuana Newsletter."
Another early appearance was in the liner notes to the Rolling Stones album, The Rolling Stones, Now!, released in February 1965 and written by the band's then-manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. One sentence of the notes reads, "Their music is Berry-chuck and all the Chicago hippies..." and another sentence from the same source reads, "Well, my groobies, what about Richmond, with its grass green and hippy scene from which the Stones untaned."
Rev. Howard R. Moody, of the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, was quoted in the June 6, 1965 New York Times as saying "Every hippy is somebody's square. And don't you ever forget it."
By around this time, "hippies" were being noted on the U.S. West Coast as well. The first clearly contemporary use of the word "hippie" appeared in print on September 5, 1965. In an article entitled "A New Haven for Beatniks," San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse, using the term hippie to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Fallon reportedly came up with the name by condensing Norman Mailer's use of the word hipster into hippie.
Use of the term hippie did not become widespread in the mass media until early 1967, after San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen began referring to hippies in his daily columns.
New York Times editor and usage writer Theodore M. Bernstein said the paper changed the spelling from hippy to hippie to avoid the ambiguous description of clothing as hippy fashions.
Pejorative use
To the late 1950s/early 1960s Beat Generation, the flood of mid-1960s youths adopting beatnik sensibilities appeared as a cheap, mass-produced imitation. By Beat Generation standards, these newcomers were not cool enough to be considered hip, so they used the term hippie with disdain. American conservatives of the period used the term hippie as an insult toward young adults whom they considered unpatriotic, uninformed, and naive.Template:Citation needed Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California during the height of the hippie movement, described a hippie as a person who "dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane, and smells like Cheeta." Others used the term hippie in a more personal way to disparage long-haired, unwashed, unkempt drug users. In contemporary conservative settings, the term hippie is often used to allude to slacker attitudes, irresponsibility, participation in recreational drug use, activism in causes considered relatively trivial, and leftist political leanings (regardless of whether the individual was actually connected to the hippie subculture). An example is its use by the South Park cartoon character, Eric Cartman.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Etymology of hippie" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
