Dan Burley/ hep/hip

Mon Jul 19 10:04:07 UTC 2010

  In the '40s in Chicago my memory says there were hepcats, but by '48
you were either hip or square, I don't think there ever was a hipcat.
I seem to remember an article in LIFE about zoot suits, claiming that
the shift from hep to hip was due to even Kay Kyser referring to "hepcats".

On 7/18/2010 11:49 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> After I had moved (relatively) North to Saint Louis, ca.1941-43 (even *I* do
> not claim to have a clear memory of my *entire* past;-)), the local bruz and
> cuz quickly pulled my coat to the fact that "hep" was unhip and a clear
> indication that I must be unhip.
>
> The point was driven home so deeply that, from that moment on, I never again
> used "hep," though I *knew* that it was - well, had been - hip to use "hep."
>
> 'In 1939, Buddy Johnson waxed his first 78 for Decca, "Stop Pretending (So
> _Hep_ You See)."'
> -AllMusic Guide to The Blues, 2003.
>
> Stop pretending
> Yeah! Yeah!
> Stop pretending
> The devil's gonna get you
> ...
> [I'm] so _hep_, you see
>
> That's the best that I can do in a search of memory. (My mother had a copy
> of the record.) But, no doubt, someone will look it up and supply any
> necessary additions, editions, and corrections.
>
> Cab Calloway used "Hep! Hep!" in his song, The Jumping Jive. But it could be
> argued that he used it merely as an exclamation to emphasize the rhythm.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Dan Burley
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _Juba to Jive_ is, I fear, not a very reliable source.
>>
>> HDAS shows that _hep_ appears in print a few years earlier than _hip_,
>> though not long enough to prove anything.
>>
>> Both forms antedate the jazz era, and both appear in the speech of whites.
>> Not that that proves anything either.
>>
>> "Hep" was very widely used in the swing era.  In the mid to late '40s,
>> "hip"
>> was suddenly prescribed and "hep" was out, possibly to some extent because
>> the new wave of be-boppers and R&B artists wanted to get away from the
>> nuances of swing culture.  It probably is true, though, that white Middle
>> American teens hung on to "hep" a few years longer than did black jazz and
>> blues musicians. As usual, go figure.
>>
>> As I may have posted some while ago, I personally heard a black student at
>> NYU in the early '70s exclaim in class, "White folks just ain't hep!"  She
>> obviously hadn't been influenced by print.
>>
>> OTOH, that was probably the last time I heard anybody say "hep" in
>> spontaneous speech.
>>
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Margaret Lee<mlee303 at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Margaret Lee<mlee303 at YAHOO.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: Dan Burley
>>>
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> I once read that during the jazz era, 'hip' was used by blacks and 'hep'
>>> by=
>>>   whites. According to _Juba to Jive_ (Major) 'hep' was the misspelled
>>> versi=
>>> on of 'hip.'
>>> Cool in current AAE seems to mean OK, acceptable, satisfactory, approved.
>>> =C2=A0
>>> --Margaret Lee
>>> ________________________________________
>>>
>>> --- On Sun, 7/18/10, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject: Re: Dan Burley
>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Date: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 1:19 AM
>>>
>>>
>>> GB has a full-page legit scan of _Billboard_ in 1955 that mentions
>> "uncool
>>> music."=C2=A0 That's the earliest one I've seen.
>>>
>>> As for hep/hip in my limited experience:
>>>
>>> AAVE:=C2=A0 no diff.
>>>
>>> AALE: you lame or something?=C2=A0 (if "L" stands for "literary and
>> media")
>>> JL
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Wilson Gray<hwgray at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender:=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0American Dialect Society
>> <ADS-L at LI
>>> =
>>> STSERV.UGA.EDU<http://stserv.uga.edu/>>
>>>> Poster:=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>>> Subject:=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 Re: Dan Burley
>>>>
>>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>>> ------
>>>> Is there any distinction between _hep hip_ and _cool_ in AAVE or in
>>>> AALE? How old is _uncool_?
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 1:01 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
>>>> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>  wrote:
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender:=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0American Dialect Society
>> <ADS-L@
>>> =
>>> LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<http://listserv.uga.edu/>>
>>>>> Poster:=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0Benjamin Zimmer
>> <bgzimmer at BABEL.
>>> =
>>> LING.UPENN.EDU<http://ling.upenn.edu/>>
>>>>> Subject:=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 Re: Dan Burley
>>>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>>> ------
>>>>> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 9:47 AM, Jonathan Lighter
>>>>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>>>> The intro to HDAS draws attention to the writing of Dan Burley (1909
>> -
>>>> 1962,
>>>>>> acc. to Wackipedia), the African-American journalist and musician
>> who
>>>>>> probably did more than any other individual human being to expand
>> and
>>>>>> popularize "jive" (urban BE slang), through his columns in the
>>>> _Pittsburgh
>>>>>> Courier_ and later in NYC's _Amsterdam News_, which he also edited.
>>>>>> Burley wrote _Dan Burley's Original Handbook of Harlem Jive_ in 1944
>>>> =C2=A0 (ISTR
>>>>>> an earlier edition in 1941 that I was unable to obtain) and _Diggeth
>>>> Thou?_
>>>>>> in 1959.=C2=A0 I see that Thomas Aiello has recently edited both
>>> under=
>>>   the
>>>> title
>>>>>> _Dan Burley's Jive_ (2009). About time!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My point?=C2=A0 ProQuest now carries the _Amsterdam News_, and a
>>> searc=
>>> h for
>>>> "Dan
>>>>>> Burley" reveals hundreds of his weekly columns back to the late
>> '30s.
>>>> =C2=A0 They
>>>>>> get jivier as time passes.=C2=A0 OED and others should find many
>>> anted=
>>> atings
>>>>>> there.=C2=A0 And some whippersnapper might find diss. inspiration.
>>>>> A search on the ADS-L archives will turn up several posts of mine
>>>>> citing Burley's "Back Door Stuff," as it appeared in the Amsterdam
>>>>> News and the Chicago Defender.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0512C&L=3DADS-L&P=
>>> =3DR1615
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0512D&L=3DADS-L&P=
>>> =3DR4384
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0802A&L=3DADS-L&P=
>>> =3DR4306
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0802B&L=3DADS-L&P=
>>> =3DR2259
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0809A&L=3DADS-L&P=
>>> =3DR2413
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0809A&L=3DADS-L&P=
>>> =3DR4552
>>>>> I also made mention of Burley's column in my On Language column on
>>>>> "cool," as evidence that the term was *not* in common "jive" use in
>>>>> the '30s.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30FOB-onlanguage-t.html
>>>>>
>>>>> --Ben Zimmer
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -Wilson
>>>> =E2=80=93=E2=80=93=E2=80=93
>>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=E2=80=93=E2=80=93a
>>> strange=
>>>   complaint to
>>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>> =E2=80=93Mark Twain
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --=20
>>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>> =0A=0A=0A
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> Wilson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--

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