[Ads-l] Phrase: hipped on the subject

Wed Mar 9 20:42:24 UTC 2016

Thanks for the 1856 English "hipped on," Garson.  Most enlightening.

JL

On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 2:43 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com
> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Phrase: hipped on the subject
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> JL's Random House Dictionary of American Slang has valuable
> information about "hip" and "hipped". This post is narrowly focused on
> the phrase "hipped on the subject".
>
> JL has an entry for an adjectival sense of "hipped":
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> hipped 3 adj. 1. infatuated (with); enthusiastic, excited, or fanatic
> (about).--usu. constr. with on.
>
> 1895 Wood Yale Yarns 262: It's because you are so hipped on a girl you
> think you see one behind every bush! 1910 Everybody's Mag. (May) 592:
> He...got a drag with our Old Man who was always hipped on helping
> along "ambition."
> [End excerpt]
>
> JL also listed another sense for "hipped"
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> 2. a. aware (of); informed (about).--constr. with on.
>
> 1920 F.S. Fitzgerald Paradise 238: Oh, just one person in fifty has
> any glimmer of what sex is. I'm hipped on Freud and all that, but it's
> rotten that every bit of real love in the world is ninety-nine per
> cent passion and one little soupcon of jealousy.
> [End excerpt]
>
> The phrase "hipped on the subject" seems to mean "obsessed with the
> subject" or "very interested in the subject". Some early citations
> have a connotation of hypochondria. Also, some later citations suggest
> a transition of the sense to "very knowledgeable about the subject".
> Please note that I am not a linguist.
>
> Year: 1856
> Title: The Queen V. Palmer: Verbatim Report of the Trial of William
> Palmer at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London, May 14, and
> Following Days, 1856, Before Lord Campbell, Mr. Justice Cresswell, and
> Mr. Baron Alderson
> Authors         William Palmer, Angelo Bennett
> Publisher: J. Allen, London
> Section: Second Day, May 15, 1856
> Quote Page 71
> Database: Google Books Full View
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> No; I think he had a little more sense than that; he would have his
> throat cauterised by any one he might be with, I mean any medical man;
> he was hipped on the subject of his throat.--I understand you to say
> his throat was not quite well; his tonsils were not quite well the
> last time you saw him?
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Date: November 1895
> Journal: The Pittsburgh Medical Review
> Volume 9
> Article: The Diseases of the Male Urethra
> Start Page 323, Quote Page 328
> Database: Google Books Full View
>
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> A patient in such a condition is liable to become hipped on the
> subject, and is in a most unenviable condition of mind over a
> pathological state of his urethra, which exists only in his own
> disordered imagination.
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Date: May-June 1905
> Journal: Mind
> Volume 15, Numbers 5 and 6
> Article: In the Astral Light
> Author: Penelope Palmer
> Start Page 477, Quote Page 479
> Database: Google Books Full View
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> "Lady Macrae is very delicate," she explained--"has an extremely
> nervous temperament. In fact, she's a trifle hipped on the subject of
> the Stuarts; there is some family tradition about their connection
> with them. The Macraes, it seems, fought their battles--and hanged for
> them too, I believe.
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Date: October 1910
> Journal: Industrial Engineering and the Engineering Digest
> Section: Correspondence
> Letter Title: "Hipped" on Motion Study
> Latter Author and Date: H. L. Grant on Oct 1, 1910
> Start Page 307, Quote Page 308
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> On the other hand, the man who becomes interested in making this kind
> of a study, will, if he has the right kind of mind, become so
> fascinated by it that it is on his mind almost all the time. This has
> been so much the case with Mr. Gilbreth that one of his friends, to
> whom he was describing the results that could be obtained, and who was
> somewhat skeptical, replied: "Gilbreth, you are hipped on this
> subject"; to which Mr. Gilbreth at once retorted: "Of course, I am
> hipped on the subject, and if you knew as much about it as I do, you
> would be hipped too."
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Date: February 1914
> Journal: The Cosmopolitan
> Volume 56
> Article: The Auction Block
> Author: Rex Beach
> Start Page 299, Quote Page 312
> Database: Google Books Full View
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> His collection of Napoleana is the finest in this country; he is an
> authority on French history of that period--in fact, he's as nearly
> hipped on the subject as a man of his powers can be considered hipped
> on anything.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
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