Hip is a

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

for ''fashionably current'' and ''in the know''. To be hip is to have "an attitude, a stance" in opposition to the "unfree world", or to what is

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

prude A prude is a person with a very sensitive attitude and narrowness towards custom and morality. The word prude comes from the Old French word also meaning loyal, respectable or modest woman, which was the source of prude in the 18th century. Ac ...

. Being ''hip'' is also about being informed about the latest ideas, styles, and developments. ''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 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, voca ...

(AAVE) in the early 1900s. In the 1930s and 1940s, it had become a common slang term, particularly in the African-American-dominated

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

scene. The origin of ''hip'' remains contested; many proposed etymologies exist, but none are proven. Research and speculation by both amateur and professional

etymologists Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

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 Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

Wolof language Wolof ( ; , ) is a Niger–Congo language spoken by the Wolof people in much of the West African subregion of Senegambia that is split between the countries of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, ...

word ''hepicat'', which means "one who has his eyes open". Other 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.. Alternative theories trace the word's origins to those who used

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

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 Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy; it is a figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term is derived . Common English synecdoches include '' ...

. This etymology is rejected by Sheidlower. 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?" 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 Rex Ellingwood Beach (September 1, 1877 – December 7, 1949) was an American novelist, playwright, and Olympic water polo player. Early life Rex Beach was born in Atwood, Michigan, and moved to Tampa, Florida, with his family where his father ...

"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". 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 Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ...

described his mid-century contemporaries as "the new American generation known as the 'Hip' (the Knowing)". 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 ''August Weekend'' or ''August Week End'' or ''Week-End Madness'' is a 1936 American drama film directed by Charles Lamont and starring Valerie Hobson, Paul Harvey and G. P. Huntley. The screenplay was adapted by Paul Perez from a story by Fa ...

'' uses the term "hip" in dialogue.

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...

, one of the voices of the Hipster-Movement, formulated the content-related interpretation of the terms "hip" and "square" in an

essay An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

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.Norman Mailer: ''The Hip and the Square: 1. The List''. In: ''Advertisements for Myself''. Putnam’s, New York 1959

References

External links

Crying Wolof: Does the word hip really hail from a West African language?
by Jesse Sheidlower at ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

''
"Hip Song (It Does Not Pay to be Hip)"
lyrics of

Shel Silverstein Sheldon Allan Silverstein (; September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician. Born and raised in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended university before being drafted into ...

song recorded by

Chad Mitchell Trio The Chad Mitchell Trio, later known as The Mitchell Trio, were an American vocal group whose peak years were during the 1960s. They performed traditional folk songs and some of John Denver's early compositions. They were particularly notable fo ...

on 1964 album ''Reflecting''
The New Cab Calloway's Hepsters Dictionary: Language of Jive, 1944
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131028193653/http://www.dinosaurgardens.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/hepsters.html , date=October 28, 2013 Slang 1940s slang 1950s slang 1960s slang

Origin of term

Development

See also

References

Further reading

External links