[Ads-l] Antedating of "Hippie"

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Mon Sep 10 16:18:49 UTC 2018


>From Wikipedia:

----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_hippie
The first clearly contemporary use of the word "hippie" appeared in print
on September 5, 1965. In an article entitled "A New Haven for Beatniks,"
San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn
coffeehouse, using the term hippie to refer to the new generation of
beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district of
San Francisco. (In a 1969 interview, San Francisco writer Ralph Gleason
attributed this move to tourism.) Fallon reportedly came up with the name
by condensing Norman Mailer's use of the word "hipster" into "hippie."
----

Fallon's 9/5/65 article in the San Francisco Examiner was the first in a
four-part series:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611289/hippie_1/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611379/hippie_2/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611403/hippie_3a/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611420/hippie_3b/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611436/hippie_4/

I used 1965 as the birth year of the Bay Area countercultural "hippie" here
(based on Fallon's series, I think):

https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/of-hipsters-
hippies-and-hepcats/


On Mon, 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
>
>
> ________________________________
> 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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