antedating (?) of "hep" 1907 (Hip and hep)

[Paul]

paul johnson wrote
 paulzjoh at mtnhome.com

hip vs hep
In my misspent (happily, I may add) youth when I had a grey flannel one
button roll, a black Mr B collar, Flagg Bros Brogans, a key chain 3/4 of
the way to my knees, two inch cuffs, and a charcoal porkpie, I clearly
remember the shift in Chicago from Hep to hip at about 1948 to 50. You
were a hepcat in the '40's and had morphed into a hipster by '52 at the
latest.

George Thompson wrote:
> [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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>
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>

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