Re: the "hip" thing

(no name) ((no email))
20 Jun 96 12:18:01 EDT


el> The 'Hip' originated from the beatnik-derived slang of the '50s-'60s
el> and still used today: "hip" meaning 'fashionable' or 'cool'- i.e.
el> "That's so hip," "What is hip?" etc.

> um, elson... the beatniks got most of their slang from american blacks. if
>you read "on the road", you'll realize that the beats (or at least kerouac)
> idealized the black experience, and somehow "aspired" to be black. besides,
>the beats were preceded by the "hipsters"...

The term "hip" actually comes from the opium scene in the early twentieth
century in which smoking was done in an opium den by lying on your hip. The
term originated as describing someone down w/the opium thing (into lying on
their hip) and to the beats and hipsters had a conotation of being into the
drug scene. BTW, I think the opium thing was more a white scene, but that is
pretty irrelevent.

How is that for taking things way off the subject?