PIP: I first remember this word from the final episode of All in the Family. The sentimental closing scene has Archie and Edith talking, crying, all that weepy stuff.
The last words spoken on the last episode of All in the Family were "You’re a real pip!" That final word confused me at the time. I simply did not know what it meant, and over two decades would pass before I learned that "pip" is short for "pippin," a colloquial word meaning "an excellent person or thing."
A fair amount of hype surrounded this final episode of All in the Family, and I must have expected that the last lines and the last moments of this show would be decisively memorable. I was confused, then, when I didn’t know what Edith was saying to Archie.
As a child I had a tendency to think that things must be obscene or dirty if I did not understand them. If I didn’t know what something meant I thought it must be one of those things only adults knew about, and that they kept that knowledge among themselves with the proverbial nudge and a wink.
Because of this I left All in the Family thinking Edith had just told Archie off, or called him some horrible name.
That is where the word "pip" sat in my until sometime in my thirties when I decided to find out what the hell it meant.
