[Ads-l] Implicit Antedating of "Hip"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Nice finds, Fred. But...

MW has "hipped," 'extremely absorbed or interested.' HDAS has something
similar. The expression was once fairly common, though MW dates it only to
1920. So your cites are considerable antedatings.

 Of course, "hipped" might represent the etymon of "hip" (but not "hep"?)
via misinterpretation.

 I'd be amazed to find anything related to  jazzy "hip" in a (white-run) WV
or SC newspaper around 1900, especially without quotation marks.

JL

On Tue, Feb 3, 2026 at 8:12 AM Shapiro, Fred <
00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> These citations are also antedatings of "hipped" (OED, adjective4, 1920).
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ________________________________
> From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2026 7:57 AM
> To: American Dialect Society <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>
> Subject: Implicit Antedating of "Hip"
>
> Here are two interesting citations I have found:
>
> 1899 Huntington (W. Va.) Advertiser 18 Oct. 3/1 (GenealogyBank)
> "There was an old fellow named Lipton,
> Yacht racing he was hipped on.
> For a wind he did pray,
> So it came one day,
> And that was the day he was whipped on."
>
> 1900 News and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) 15 Nov. 8/1 (GenealogyBank)
> According  to a story which was running about the Tenderloin yesterday the
> Barnes woman is hipped on hypnotism.
>
> Sometimes the OED will have, as its earliest citation for a term, an
> "implied" use of the term.  The implied use is not placed in square
> brackets.  An example is the cultural-anthropology sense of the word
> "bonding," where the earliest citation is said by the OED to be "implied
> in" a use of the words "pair bonding."  I believe that the citations above
> are antedatings of "hip" (OED,  verb5. 1932).  I also suggest that these
> citations are implicit antedatings of "hip" (OED, adjective, "Aware,
> well-informed; in the know," 1904); (Stephen Goranson, 1902); (Fred
> Shapiro, 1903).  To be "hipped on" means "to be made hip."
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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