How The Word Hippie Came About

[RangerDanger]

Since the early days of jazz (circa early 1900's), jazz musicians were known to have indulged in IV drugs.
There was a huge increase in the cases of hepatitus due to wide-spread needle sharing. So when a few jazzmen gathered to shoot up, they would ask one another "are you hep?" meaning do you have hepatitus?
Eventually this came to mean cool. "I've hep to that jive" meant "I'm cool I know what's going on".
In the 30's--40's this became hep-cat.
The word fell into disuse until the beatnik era of the 50's. By this time it had changed to hip. "Are you hip?"
Then in circa 1963, The Orlons came out with a song called "South Street". It contained the lyric "where do all the hippie's meet? South Street, South Street".
But it didn't aquire it's current mean until The Summer Of Love, 1967.
There quickly became a great divide between the hippie's and the jocks. Jocks (and cops) would beat hippie's up for having long hair and living the hippie life-style.
And it's till in use, and it makes my heart warm to know that there are teens even nowadays who are carrying on the tradition.
And a lot the hippie bands--The Beatles, The Doors, The Stones, etc. are still popular.
Long Live Hippie's.

 

[Pythaglio]

Shenanigans.

 

[Wilbur]

i don't agree. the word was used by the media to describe a group of people/movement they didn't understand.


I'm hep.

 

[Keith Lake]

Are ya sure? I think you need to do some re-search before you post.

I know I'm not sure.

I read the Random House link that you posted, (thanks for that) but the citation was weak in my opinion. It's just the statement of one person and is unsupported by references. The person's name is Lindy Ruark @ farmcredit.com ??? I did a quick google to see if this is someone I should know and the only 2 relevent hits that were returned were words of the day from Random House.

Anyway, I think the etymology on Wikipedia is far more supported and this leans far more towards Mr. Danger's version, though it does stop short of the hepatitis reference.

Hippie - Wikipedia

 

[merickson]

I don't remember which came first the Orlon's song or people calling themselves "hippies". Little hipsters.

 

[Wilbur]

who called themselves hippies?

 

[Wilbur]

^ thank you

i much prefer freak/freaks

 

[chancedebris]

In his biography, Really The Blues, Mezz Messrow, the jazz clarinetist said hip was first a reference to the hip flask that was common during Prohibition. But who cares, anyway?

 

[Wilbur]

Don't get me wrong it makes for good convo, but like I said do lil research before you start a supposidly factual thread. this topic was harmless n debatable as the origin of 420, but the next may not be harmless n afftect things in a neg manner.

ok, now i'm lost

 

[Earth Child]

And just forget it, guys. We're happy hippies, and that's all that matters : ).

Earth Child