"Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 17, 2004, at 7:47 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Subject:      "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is
> published
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> "HIP" FROM WOLOF?
>    =20
> Hip: The History
> By John Leland
> Ecco, 405 pp., %26.95
>  =20
> http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/182/sante.shtml
> EYES WIDE SHUT
> BY LUC SANTE
> The way of all hip, from Emerson to a billboard near you
>
> John Leland may or may not have written the first history of
> hipness=E2=80=
> =94I can't,=20
> in an admittedly casual search, find another=E2=80=94but it's hard to
> shake=20=
> the=20
> thought that such a book might as well be its subject's obituary. It's
> like=20
> broadcasting the rituals of the lodge, or maybe spelling down all the
> names=20=
> of the=20
> godhead. There are dozens of histories of bohemia, but that's not the
> same=20
> thing, although the two concepts have a large field of intersection.
> Bohemia=
> =20
> started in Europe and spread around the world, but hip (Leland employs
> the w=
> ord as=20
> both adjective and noun) is indigenously American. The word derives
> from the=
> =20
> Wolof hepi ("to see") and hipi ("to open one's eyes"). The idea of hip
> emerg=
> ed=20
> from seeds sown in Senegambia that budded in America. It has
> everything to d=
> o=20
> with race mixing, and it works both ways, comprising not just white
> people's=
> =20
> love and theft of black style but also African American appropriations
> of=20
> European baggage: the pianoforte, the three-button suit,
> existentialism, Yid=
> dish=20
> expressions, horn-rim glasses, the novel. And hip is occult, arcana
> without=20=
> a=20
> heaven.=20
>
>        =20
> I saw this book at the Barnes & Noble and I've been thinking about
> this.=20
> Lighter's HDAS has "origin unknown"

Lighter's HDAS rules!

>  for "hep" and "hip." It's nice that a bo=
> ok=20
> about the subject, such as this is, can go beyond scholarship and
> state a=20
> conclusion for a mass audience that's not based on evidence.
>  =20
> And the reviewers--they usually know even less.
>  =20
> I don't subscribe to the "Wolof" theory at all.

Well said! Hear! Hear! Several years ago - a quarter-century, perhaps?
- I read a paper that claimed a Wolof origin for several other
well-known BE terms of this ilk, e.g. "hipcat" < Wolof "hipikat," as
well as "hip" and "hep." My memory may be failing me, but I recall the
term as "hepcat." Be that as it may, I am in complete agreement with
Barry. I couldn't have phrased it better myself.

-Wilson Gray

>  Even if I did, however, I=20
> would have reservations in stating this before the general public. But
> I gue=
> ss=20
> that wouldn't be hip.
>    =20
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----=
> --
> --------------------
> EBWAY.ORG & THE BIG APPLE WHORES
>    =20
> Two in one week. I'd posted about "Google Answers," but there's also
> this.=20
> The editors also write for TIME OUT NEW YORK, so there's an outside
> chance t=
> hat,=20
> after a mere twelve years, "the Big Apple" story might finally appear
> in a=20
> New York magazine (NEW YORK, NEW YORKER, TIME OUT).
>  =20
> http://www.ebway.org/
>    Thursday, October 14, 2004 =20
>> How 'bout them Big Apples?
>> =20
> It seems that with our August 27 post about the origin of the NYC
> nickname=20
> "The Big Apple" we stumbled into a longtime feud. A week ago, we got
> an emai=
> l=20
> from Barry Popik, a contributor-consultant to the Oxford English
> Dictionary=20=
> who,=20
> he claims, is "recognized as an expert on the origins of the terms Big
> Apple=
> ,=20
> Windy City, hot dog, and many other food terms." Popik says that our
> story,=20
> which traced the name back to an LES madame's "apples", is a hoax
> perpetrate=
> d=20
> by The Society for New York City History. Popik argues that the actual
> term=20
> came from African-American stable hands at the Fair Grounds racetrack
> in New=
> =20
> Orleans, who referred to the big time as the "Big Apple."
>
> Have we (and El Diario) been hoodwinked? We report (a little), you
> decide.
>
> Update: EBway reader deanna writes, "The guy about the horseraces is
> right.=20
> The term really gained popularity among jazz artists coming to the the
> city=20=
> to=20
> play, too -- they picked it up from the horserace fans, and when they
> would=20
> get gigs in NYC in the 1910s and '20s, they would say they were going
> to the=
>  Big=20
> Apple... they'd landed a gig in what was then the best place outside
> of New=20
> Orleans to get noticed. The appropriation of jazz slang -- note the
> word "co=
> ol"=20
> is jazz all the way -- and the appropriation of African-American slang
> in=20
> general into mainstream culture is well-documented and studied in a
> variety=20=
> of=20
> linguistics texts..."
>
>    posted by Ian at 2:10 PM    =20
>  =20
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----=
> --
> --------------------
> MY BOOK IS PUBLISHED

Congratulations, Barry!

-Wilson

>    =20
> My book arrived; the book party is Tuesday. I've been depressed all
> week.
>  =20
> Last Saturday, I took a walking tour of Little India in Jackson
> Heights. I=20
> thought I'd do some work on "Bollywood," and all the NYPL materials
> were, as=
> =20
> usual, off site. Wednesday, after work, I headed to the Science,
> Industry, a=
> nd=20
> Business library (open until 8 p.m.) and ordered the books. Thursday
> and Fri=
> day=20
> should have been plenty of time to get them, and I'd read them on
> Saturday.
>  =20
> Yesterday, I made the trek to the NYPL. My books weren't there. "You
> made th=
> e=20
> request when?" I was asked. There was no trace of my off-site request.
> I=20
> would have to request the books again. That's how it's been.
>  =20
> Barry Popik! I'm Barry Popik! This happens to me every single goddamn
> time!=20
> Is there some problem? Every single thing I do my entire life is like
> this!=20
> Soylent Green is made of people! People!!!!!!!!!
>  =20
> Which brings me again to my new book. I can't say what the book is
> because=20
> ADS-L archives are Google-searchable.
>  =20
> Let's start off with "hot dog." It's written by the expected person.
> Written=
> =20
> poorly. My name is never cited, but Gerald Cohen's is. Also cited is
> David K=
> .=20
> Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf's AMERICA IN SO MANY WORDS, because
> you'd want=
> =20
> to receive my "hot dog" work second-hand.=20
>    =20
> Let's check "corn dog." (Corn is on the cover of the book.)  "And it
> is no=20
> coincidence that the corn dog (invented as the 'cozydog' in
> Springfield,=20
> Illinois, in 1947) and cornflakes (by Kellogg's in Battle Creek,
> Michigan, i=
> n 1902)=20
> both originated in the Midwest,..." I'd posted here in February 2003
> that "c=
> orn=20
> flakes" was cited from the 1890s. In November 2002, I'd posted "corn
> dog"=20
> from 1939. In April 2003, I'd posted "corn dog" from 1929. In November
> 2003,=
>  I'd=20
> posted "corn dog" hitting  Los Angeles in 1940.
>  =20
> Let's check "gyro." I had made a special trip to Chicago for this.
> Nope, not=
>  t
> here.
>  =20
> Let's check "Danish pastry." I'd traced this to a Danish baker in New
> York=20
> City, but no one will ever know.
>  =20
> Let's check "slang." The entry is by Tom Dalzell and several AMERICAN
> SPEECH=
> =20
> articles are cited. No dates are attached to most of the slang.
> "86"--perhap=
> s=20
> the greatest slang term of this type--is not mentioned. My work on
> Michael=20
> Casey and the Bowery origin of food slang ("Adam and Eve on a Raft")
> is not=20
> mentioned. Despite this, Dalzell's "slang" article is still one of the
> best=20=
> written=20
> in the book.
>  =20
> Let's check "smoothie." I did tremendous work on this, but there's no
> entry.=
> =20
> Just one line! "Smoothies, thick drinks consisting of fresh fruit
> blended wi=
> th=20
> milk, yogurt, or ice cream, became popular in the 1980s." ONE LINE!
> Not even=
> =20
> a good one line.
>  =20
> Let's check "Sicilian pizza," of which I'd recently posted and should
> make=20
> another post with an earlier cite. It's not here under "pizza."
>  =20
> Let's check "ice cream." This entry had better be good--"ice cream"
> is=20
> important. Let's start with "sundae":
>    =20
> "The invention of the ice cream sundae is also the stuff of legend.
> One=20
> version has it that preachers thought it was sinful to si[p sodas on
> Sundays=
> , which=20
> led an enterprising soda jerk to invent the sundae. Another says it
> was=20
> invented when someone ran out of soda water. The sundae was hugely
> popular,=20=
> and=20
> other ice cream innovations followed."
>  =20
> That's it. No names. No places. No dates.
>  =20
> Let's check "iced tea." It's in a section about the 1904 St. Louis
> World's=20
> Fair: "Visitors are more conventional food than at other fairs but
> were firs=
> t=20
> introduced to iced tea, Eskay's healthy baby foods, sliced bread,
> and,=20
> purportedly, hot dogs and hamburgers." But in the section on "tea,"
> there's=20=
> this: "Iced=20
> tea was also available in the 1870s in hotels and railroads."  My
> important=20
> find in the 1857 SATURDAY EVENING POST is never mentioned.
>  =20
> Let's check "Long Island Iced Tea." It isn't here!
>  =20
> The cocktail sections were written by Dale DeGroff, who quotes the
> same usua=
> l=20
> sources and does no original research.
>  =20
> Let's check "coffee." Surely, my book would have some of my work on=20
> "cappuccino" in America, tracing the historical sites in San Francisco
> and N=
> ew York=20
> (Caffe Regio on MacDougall Street). "Cappuccino" is not even in the
> index!
>  =20
> So it goes, on term after term of American food and drink.
>  =20
> On Friday, I brought the book to work. Everybody was impressed. Yeah,
> the=20
> binding is fabulous.
>  =20
> And I'm thinking, why am I still doing parking tickets for a living?
> Why is=20
> this even a book and not an electronically searchable format? Why am I
> not=20
> writing a dictionary and blasting all of this apart?
>   =20
> Why do I live another day? To get plagiarized by Chicago? To tell
> people=20
> twice a week that the Big Apple doesn't come from whores? Is that it?
>