[Ads-l] Hip/Hep and "Crying Wolof" (for Horn & Sheidlower)

[Stephen Goranson]

I shan't represent myself as a hip/hep expert (I did mention here two 1903 uses of "put you hep" from two different days of the same-titled news column), but, Zola Rice, if I may say so, early documented uses of a term seem to me relevant in etymological research. If your proposal is correct, then such research may help. Do the "scholars who matter" think otherwise?

best wishes,
Stephen Goranson
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <...> on behalf of Z Rice <...>
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2016 10:30 AM
To: ...
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Hip/Hep and "Crying Wolof" (for Horn & Sheidlower)

All of this is disingenuous and diversionary.  NONE of of this addresses
the original post and the Wolof evidence.

Focusing on when and where a term was first published is rendering yourself
a glorified data-entry clerk.

I can hire a temp to perform the exact same services.

I have forwarded my work to the scholars that matter.  You can continue
with the diversionary tactics, simplistic analysis, and eurocentrism here,
but with all due respect, you're simply making yourselves looks ridiculous.

No matter what the myth of "Cry Wolof" is officially DEAD. My work is in
the hands of the scholars that matter. The study of AAV is advancing, and
in this process, the old guard must be left behind.

Zola

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter <....>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <...
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <...
> Subject:      Re: Hip/Hep and "Crying Wolof" (for Horn & Sheidlower)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It is also true that representations of AAVE either by African-American
> writers or well-informed whites are comparatively rare before WWII.
>
> I can't think, offhand, of any really substantial glossaries of black slang
> before Dan Burley's enthusiastic _Original Handbook of Harlem Jive_
> (1944).  Those that exist are perfunctory
>
> An informed analysis of Burley's book is long overdue (unless there's one
> that I'm unaware of, which is a distinct possibility).
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 9:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter <...
> wrote:
>
> > The data available to HDAS two decades ago made it impossible to say
> > which, hip or hep, was "the original."
> >
> > Both appear in writing at almost the same time. The popular presumption
> > that "hip" is the original and therefore the "correct form" is neither
> > provable nor disprovable.
> >
> > "Hip" and "hep" first appear in print - in white theatrical and criminal
> > discourse - ca.1900.  "Hep" was long the predominant form.
> >
> > "Hepcat" and the very less frequent "hipcat" don't show up until the
> swing
> > era.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:10 PM, James A. Landau <
> ...
> > > wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <...
> >> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <...
> >> Subject:      Re: Hip/Hep and "Crying Wolof" (for Horn & Sheidlower)
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> On Fri, 11 Mar 2016 13:53:57 zone+0800 W Brewer <...
> >> wrote:
> >> Subject:
> >>
> >> <begin quote>
> >>
> >> <hippity-hop> is obviously connected to the quintessentially AA hip-hop
> >> cultural movement.
> >>
> >> Hippity-hop to the barber shop,
> >>    To buy a stick of candy;
> >> One for you, and one for me,
> >>    And one for Brother Andy.
> >>
> >> Note the significant reference to Spencer Williams at the end of the
> >> poem.
> >>
> >> Who could doubt that <hippity-hop> derives from <hip-hop>, if not
> >> ultimately from Wolof, given the phonological, semantic, & cultural
> >> correspondences?
> >>
> >> <end quote>
> >>
> >> Actually, Mr. Brewer, the term "hip-hop" was originated by an
> >> African-American musician who was reading Beatrix Potter and decided
> that
> >> since he was a member of a disadvantaged minority group he felt affinity
> >> with Peter Rabbit.
> >>
> >> Seriously, English has a long-standing fondness for what might be called
> >> "mishmash" words, words of the form AXB-AYB where A and B are
> consonants or
> >> consonant clusters and X and Y are vowels.  Examples:  riff-raff,
> >> flim-flam, flip-flop, zig-zag, tic-tac-(toe), click-clack, knick-knack,
> >> Long-Fong-Spong Hong Kong Ping Pong Ding Dong.  These are easy to
> invent:
> >> books published in Riga are Lett Lit.
> >>
> >> (Mishmash words are not restricted to English, e.g. in the French
> >> original of "Frere Jacques" the bells sound "din dan don", and in Sweden
> >> there is a series of children's books about three boys named Snip, Snap,
> >> and Snur.)
> >>
> >> I have absolutely no evidence for the following conjecture, but it is
> >> easy to imagine that some musician or music critic (probably but not
> >> necessarily African-American) decided that here was a new genre of music
> >> and it needed a name.  The music was definitely "hip" and this theorized
> >> coiner may have then thought of the phrase "hippity-hop", or even of
> Peter
> >> Rabbit, or of some other rabbit, or maybe even the dance known as the
> >> "bunny hop", and came up with "hip-hop".
> >>
> >> One thing I do know about "hip" and "hep" is that the latter was widely
> >> known in white America by 1945, when the US Navy had a squadron of
> >> submarines (USS Sea Dog, Crevalle, and Spadefish) known as "Hydeman's
> Hep
> >> Cats".  (There were two other squadrons, "Piece's Pole Cats" and "[Bob]
> >> Risser's Bob Cats".  Collectively, the three squadrons formed the "Hell
> >> Cats".)
> >>
> >> Did I miss somewhere in this thread evidence that "hip" derived from
> >> "hep" or vice versa?
> >>
> >> - Jim Landau  (who wouldn't recognize a piece of hip-hop music if one
> >> hopped in front of him)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org