antedating (?) of "hep" 1907

[George Thompson]

[The  Actor's Boarding House and Other Stories, By Helen Green] was
> published in 1907 but it says that the stories have all appreared in (NY?)
> Morning Telegraph (in 1906?).

Yes, a New York paper.  I'm the world's foremost authority on Helen Green, and some years ago I tried to find a file of the Telegraph for the years she wrote for it (1905-1910 or thereabouts), but didn't succeed.  As I recall, the NYPL had it up to 1905, and after 1910.  It could be a good source for slang, since it devoted itself to the raffish elements of NYC culture.
In its later decades, it was strictly a horse-player's organ, and was bought out and killed by the still-extant Racing Form in the 1950s.  But the Form doesn't have a file of the Telegraph from before the 1930s.
Not to be confused with the NY Telegram, by the way.

If SG has actually read The Actors' Boarding House, I will buy him a beer, should we ever meet.  We Helen Green fans are a small group, but intensely collegial.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
Date: Friday, September 5, 2008 11:32 am
Subject: Re: antedating (?) of "hep" 1907
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU


> Quoting Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>:
>
> > On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 08:34:47AM -0400, Stephen Goranson wrote:
> >> OED has 1908 for slang "hep" {and a 1941 "Joe Hep" mention) and 1904
> >> for "hip."
> >>
> >> At the Actor's Boarding House and Other Stories, By Helen Green (NY:
> >> Brentano's.
> >> 1907).
> >>
> >> p. 31 "I'm hep," said Terence, briefly, feeling in his pocket for
> the short
> >> billy which had won him so many scraps over on "the Avenoo."
> >
> > HDAS cites this example from Green, along with four or more
> > earlier examples of _hep_ (depending on how you regard the
> > dating of this and other books).
> >
> > Jesse Sheidlower
> > OED
>
>
> Yes, thanks, I should have checked there. Now that I have, it still
> appears that
> the collocation Joe Hep in this sense may be an antedating. The book was
> published in 1907 but it says that the stories have all appreared in (NY?)
> Morning Telegraph (in 1906?).
>
> Stephen
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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