"Hep" vs. "Hip"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/1/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Wilson, are you 99.44% sure about "How ADJ is that?"
>
> It's become very prominent over the past few years (esp.in "How cool is that?"),
> but I can't say that I noticed it any earlier.

We discussed this formation back in February, when I brought up an
occurrence in Jim Bouton's _Ball Four_ (1970):

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0602c&L=ads-l&P=16140

I later posted about it in Language Log, noting Wilson's Army
remembrances ca. 1959:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002989.html


--Ben Zimmer

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