Only one letter separates pattern from patter, only three brings you to chatter. Of the three words, patter is pure trickery.
Above, you've got a graph via Google Ngram Reader of relative book-recorded instances of word usage: hipcat, hepcat, hipster and beatnik. Hipster spiked around 1959, beatnik in the 1960s. Both have made comebacks. I've always liked the word "hepcat," a compound word building on the band term hep that itself goes back at least more than a century. Flipping through a book of correspondence between Kerouac and Ginsberg, I noticed the former's use of the word hipcat while in Mexico to see William S. Burroughs. This is rarer. So words are also mustard seeds. Some are luckier than others.
4 comments:
Very possible that (even though not a big Ginsburg fan) Kerouac felt that to call Burroughs a hip, hep or hop cat of any kind would set the crazy bastard off on a game of William Tell.
So weird in that Lana and I were watching "Naked LUnch" last night, and in the end we have the William Tell scene.
Erik, my jazz buddies say, 'Hepcat' as if it's one word! I just say, Lola...
I too prefer hepcat. Mainly because I think it sounds funny.
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