Hippies

[Jonathon Green]

In lexical terms, and all sociology aside, the term hippie seems to have two (and possibly three) stages of development. The first, used initially in the African-American and/or jazz community of the 1940s/60s, meant, as seen in the Yallop quote, one who believed - incorrectly - that they were 'hip' and posed as such. This is underlined by similar citations:

1960 N.Y. Post 16 Nov. 50: A 'hippy' in the lexicon of jazz, is a pretender to the truth of Hip

1965 (ref. to 1940s) Malcolm X Autobiography (1968) 182: A few of the white men around Harlem [...] whom we called 'hippies', acted more Negro than Negroes.

1967 Current Slang II:1 4 Hippies, n. Pseudo-beatniks

Overlapping chonologically with that last reference comes what one might term as the 'positive' hippie, the 'flower child' of the Sixties: 

1967 Hunter S. Thompson letter 6 June (in The Proud Highway) 617: All these people are hippies, very hairy people, full of flower power

1969 Gandalf's Garden [a UK 'hippie magazine] vol. 6 n.d. 11: hippy no precise informative is available on this elusive creature, which appears to be but a fabrication of the straight press to denote ordinary people with longish hair, beards and colourful clothes [...] Otherwise a hippy could be described as one who is hip, i.e. aware of the common unity of the Children of the Earth and seeks an easeful, happy life 'doing his own thing' in peace, without interference from grey-minded outside authorities?.

This second def. (and there are many, many available cites - the first RHDAS has is from 1966. ) is the one that has lasted (although the term, while still meaning a 'flower child' has once again gained more of a pejorative feel).

In addition there is this intermediate form:

1965 L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty . . . 93: The jazz muscians liked me. I was the only hippy around.

This, however, seems a rare use, and Bruce may have possibly misread the A-A/jazz term. 

Jonathon Green