Origins of "soft core," "Yippies," "Twinkie defense"

Gareth Branwyn garethbranwyn at COMCAST.NET
Sun Nov 29 05:01:54 UTC 2009


I am currently editing an article by Paul Krassner (of "The Realist"
fame) in which he claims to have coined the terms "soft core
porn" (1958), "Yippies" (1967) and "the Twinkie defense" (which he
says he made up in 1979 during the trial of Dan White for the double
execution of SF Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk).

Does anyone here know more about the origins of these terms? I assume
he made up Yippies, or was at least involved in the coinage, since he
was a co-founder of the Youth International Party. His telling of it
in this article makes it sound like he came up with both Youth
International Party and Yippies (in that order), but I've read other
accounts that say Anita Hoffman came up with Youth International Party
after Yippies was coined, so that the group would have a more formal
name for mainstream press purposes.

Any other information folks here might have would be greatly
appreciated.

Gareth

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