Reader's question:

 This hip-looking French restaurant and wine bar is still one of the best kept secrets in town. As such, the shops all had a rustic look, and definitely none of those modern or hip looking shops that I'd seen elsewhere. Could you explain “hip-looking”?

My comments: Anything that is “hip-looking” looks fashionable, trendy, up-to-date, hot.

“Hip” is the word in question here, a slang term for describing people or things that are fashionable, or, using another omnipresent colloquial word, cool. The usage is believed to have first been borrowed from black communities in the Unites States.

Nowadays, of course, it’s on the lips of everyone, black or white. Here’s an example:

I’m going to give you a list of Jewish American writers and books that you have to read if you want to be cool, if you want to sound hip and with it when you are around people who read. Even if you can drop a few of these names you’ll be way ahead of others in the “I’m more cultured than you” game - If you want to be cool, you will read . . . Monica Osborne, jewcy.com, April 20, 2007.

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本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.