hippies

[Paul Johnson]

Jazz slang would have been hipsters, not hippies, as I remember the '50s.

Wilson Gray wrote:

> I don't believe it. I was living in L.A., at the time, and such people
> hanging out on Sunset Boulevard were called "hippies" in the local
> Southland media without reference to Frisco and prior to the
> development of The Haight into a Mecca for the faithful.
>
> Besides, the story has no explanatory power. Why did the author and
> her friends apply a soubriquet that was originally jazz slang [at
> least, this correspondnt and his ace boon coons believed this to be
> the case at the time and wondered how and why this bit of BE slang
> came to be applied to white people; it took a while to become
> accustomed to the hearing the word in its new meaning] to the wannabes
> in the first place?
>
> -Wilson
>

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