"Hipster" as pejorative.

I don't think there's any correlation with being "cool" and being a "hipster".

Does discussing the definition of hipster qualify you as one? Not me, I'm here for scholarly purposes only.

What do people who are overly populist about having fun do for fun?

I don't know if you're hip or not, Edd, but you're definitely OTM.

Digable Planets used it positively as recently as 1993.

the word "hipicat" means something relevant in wolof: sadly i forget what

Dear Cecil:

What is the origin of the expression "hip hip hurrah"? According to one book I've read, it derives from an abbreviation of the Latin Hierusylema Est Perdita, "Jerusalem is destroyed." Apparently, medieval antisemites yelled "Hep! Hep!" as they exiled or executed innocent Jews. Can this be true? Can modern expressions such as hip, hipster, hippie, and hip-hop have such an odious etymology? Say it ain't so. --Name withheld, Washington, D.C.

Cecil replies:

You're not going to believe it, but there may be a germ of truth to this bizarre story.

Hip, hippie, hipster, and presumably hip-hop all derive from hep (meaning hip, of course), which dates from the turn of the century. There are several theories where hep came from:

(1) From the marching cadence "hep, two, three, four." If you were hep, you were in step with what was happening.

(2) From Joe Hep, who ran a low-life saloon in Chicago in the 1890s. (You may recall our discussion of another 1890s Chicago saloonkeeper who allegedly lent his name to the language, Mickey Finn. 1890s Chicago saloonkeepers were obviously quite a crew.) Hep liked to hover around the local hoods while they plotted their dirty deeds and fancied himself in the know. His name was originally used ironically to refer to someone who thought he knew what was going on but didn't. The ironic sense was soon lost and to get Joe to or to get hep to simply meant to get the straight dope, so to speak. (Source: D.W. Maurer, American Speech, 1941.)

(3) According to a 1914 slang dictionary, "from the name of a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati."

Of the three explanations, #1 is probably the least absurd. Hep (or hup or hip) has long been a multipurpose exclamation. In addition to being a cadence counter it was a traditional cry used by teamsters and herders to rouse animals. Hip was used to mean something on the order of "yo" or "hey" in the 18th century, and folks obviously thought it made a nice kickoff for hip hip hurrah.

Now we get to the bizarre part. Antisemitic rioters in Europe in the 19th century often shouted "Hep! Hep!" while on the prowl for Jews. Mob harrassment of Jews in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and other German cities in 1819, in fact, became known as the "Hep! Hep!" riots.

The origin of the expression is unclear. Some claim it derived from Hierusylema (also spelled Hierosolyma) Est Perdita. This theory obliges us to believe that a significant fraction of the rioters were students of Latin. Others say it came from the German habe, in this context apparently meaning "give." But some believe it was nothing more than the traditional herdsmen's cry, perhaps used because the rioters thought Jews ought to be rounded up like animals.

Does this mean we owe hip, hippie, hip hip hurrah and the rest to the howling of a bunch of Jew baiters? Not necessarily. Literary citations of hip hip hurrah in clearly innocent contexts date from 1818, the year before the "Hep! Hep!" riots. (I've seen nothing to convince me "Hep! Hep!" was used in the middle ages.) The most plausible explanation is that hip hip hurrah and "Hep! Hep!" simply have a common source, the herder's cry. Still, it's something to think about next time you're about to give someone three cheers.

(i got this from the net, not a speaker of Wolof)

Almost anyone who wasn't mainstream and 'square' was a hipster.

E.g. almost no-one was a "hipster" -- Mark is spot-on here, that such terms can only be developed by the subculture they describe (as a way of identifying and distinguishing themselves) but as of the 40s and 50s in America the standard arc was for that description to be revealed to the mainstream public ("here we have the freaks who describe themselves as X") and then become bulk-usage pejorative. (If the dynamics were anything like they are with such words now, one assumes the subculture quits using it as soon as it's revealed to the larger public -- it loses its purpose as a shibboleth and in lots of senses cops to what they'd probably consider the public's "misunderstanding" of them.)

E.g. in bulk usage from 1963-1976 what would you guess the ratio would be between "hippies" as positive or neutral description and "hippies" with an implied "damn dirty" beforehand?

I was called before a high school English department tribunal for using this word in a newspaper article my freshman year. They wanted to know where I had stolen it from.

Martin, I think you're on the right track, since I do recall reading about jazz musicians favorably talking about "hipsters," at least c. 1950. Although by then the word had a slightly patronizing cast, it seems, meaning someone who came from the outside but eagerly, admirably wanted in. (I.e. the white fans who would trek to Harlem clubs in those days.)

I think the word's lost most if not all of its racial implications right? Can we safely say that?

What do people who are overly populist about having fun do for fun?

I don't know if you're hip or not, Edd, but you're definitely OTM.

-- Stuart (gonzomoos...), February 10th, 2003

See, Stuart, I'm so unhip I don't even know what "OTM" means. On the money? Off the money? Off the mark? On the mountain (Hank Williams Jr. reference)? I always thought the word itself came from Wolof (sp?); that's what Robert Palmer (the late music writer, not the British singer who wears suits all the time) says in "Deep Blues."

I always was under the impression that "hipster" was not a compliment, it referred to a white-person jazz wannabe--who was that guy, Dean Benedetti, who wire-recorded all the Charlie Parker solos he could get but left out the others? Am I wrong here? Didn't the term come into general use in the bebop era?

(when i was in the shower today i flashed on that sun ra quote "blah blah these are the hopes and dreams of someone, don't be so hip" to his sneering band. i can't date it, tho.)

And it's the third one at that.

So--who out there can get to the bottom of the etymology of "hip"? The "hip-hip-hooray" hypothesis doesn't strike me as very convincing. Surely someone out there knows the answer. Actually, looking back up the thread, the explanation of its origin in the name of the Chicago saloonkeeper strikes me as plausible.

I haven't read the piece yet, but he quotes Foreigner's 'I Want To Know What Love Is' as one of the ten worst songs of all time, so I'm suspicious.

i think the wolof "hipicat" deal is a gazillion times more plausible than the chicago barman one!!

ps the word "dude" was reintroduced to america by p.g.wodehouse

I don't think Paul Oliver is that bad, he always carefully qualifies the connections he draws b/t Africa and the blues even if it is a more central part of his writing than of Charters's, Lomax's, etc. Anyways, I should add that Palmer had the benefit of a few decades' more ethnomusicological analysis than Charters (who *ahem* chartered blues studies to some extent).

I had this problem with "ululating"

I myself believe (off-topic here) that 99% of all blues writing is worthless--I've read just about every book on the topic.

clearly, the boy is a hipster.

ftr it was in my facebook feed, I do NOT reed McSweeneys!

That Blossom song (OK a Dave Frishberg song sung by Blossom) is one of the best things ever, do click that triangle

Speaking of McSweeney's, Dave Eggers Trump novel sounds like it's the worst thing to ever be written.

Did you post the McS link without reading it?

Seeing pieces like this published in 2020 is like finding one of those isolated Japanese island bunkers where the soldiers don't know the war is over.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, January 26, 2020 10:17 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

good. let's wind the culture back to 2010 -- a moment of crisis but also incipient hope -- and just do this shit over again, better this time.