[Ads-l] Antedating of "Hippie"

[Laurence Horn]

> On Sep 10, 2018, at 11:58 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> The context doesn't clarify much, but it is likely, I think, that the 1944 citation is in the basic sense of "one who is hip."
> 
> 
> I have tried to antedate the 1966 first use for the "Berkeley countercultural" sense of "hippie," but it seems to be difficult to find 1965 evidence.
> 
> Fred Shapiro

Hard to know without dates for the 1966 OED cites, both of which involve publications about hallucingens; I’d look for something in one of the “underground” periodicals of the era, e.g. Berkeley Barb, L.A. Free Press, and east coast counterparts (I was living in L.A. at the time).  The fact that neither of the OED cites defines ‘hippie(s)’ (one uses scare quotes, the other doesn’t) suggests that the readers would have been expected to recognize the term by then.

LH


> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2018 11:36 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Hippie"
> 
> Presumably the surrounding context clarifies what sort of folks those “hippies” were.  Note the referential split between OED hippy/hippie 1 (‘one who is in the know, esp. about jazz music and culture; hepcat) and 2 ('A member of a countercultural movement which began in the late 1960s, characterized by pacifism, rejection of conservative values, and a nonconformist appearance…’). The first attestations of the latter denotation are from 1966, but I suspect it could be pushed back a little.
> 
> LH
> 
>> On Sep 10, 2018, at 8:58 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>> 
>> hippie (OED 1948)
>> 
>> 
>> 1944 _New York Age_ 8 Jan. 9/8 (Readex)  There is too much adulation by Harlem children of the "hippies" and their activities.
>> 
>> 
>> Fred Shapiro
>> 
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