Pipperoo

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. This is Sherry Grunder in Fairfield, Maine.

Hello, Sherry. How are you doing?

Hey, Sherry.

Hi, Martha.

What’s happening?

I’m homeschooling some children here in Maine. I’ve got two that are remaining at home, teenage young ladies.

And can they say hi to you first?

Yeah, sure. Put them on.

Okay.

Hi, Grant and Martha.

Hello. How are you doing?

Nice to meet you, ladies.

Who is this?

Okay, well, that was Gretchen and Abigail.

Okay. Great.

They’re teenagers in ninth and eighth grade, respectively, there. And we listen to a lot of music here at home, a lot of different genres.

And unsurprisingly for our household, a few days ago, my girls were actually country line dancing to big band music.

Okay.

Of course.

Why not?

And they were listening to Glenn Miller Orchestra, and we heard a song with some interesting words.

And the girls and I would like to share the words with you first, okay?

Okay.

K-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O-O-O, what a gal. A real Pipparoo.

That’s impressive.

Nice.

Well rehearsed.

It would be more impressive if we weren’t losing sleep because we have no idea what a Pipparoo is. We’ve tried looking it up online.

I went to all the definition sources that I could come up with. We kind of speculate and think we know the meaning of it, but really, what is a Pipparoo and where did that come from?

You’re going to sleep well tonight.

Oh, God.

Yeah, what do you think it means from that context?

From that context, we would say, because everything he says in the entire song about this young woman he’s talking about is very positive, so we would assume it means something like she’s really awesome or neat or something along those lines.

Yep, that’s exactly right. It’s something really excellent.

We can break it down for you. The eroo there is a jokey artificial ending that you see on other words like switcheroo or floparoo.

And it sort of intensifies them but also makes them funny, right? It’s just something even more than what it was before you put that suffix on there.

And piperoo comes from pippin, which is a particularly excellent kind of apple. It’s a really prized kind of apple.

And the term goes back to the 19th century, where it was applied to things that were excellent or pleasing, a beautiful person, beautiful thing. It’s sort of like saying you’re a peach.

Oh, wow. That’s cool. All right.

I didn’t know that.

I never made the pip, pippin, apple connection.

Yeah, the word pip means a lot of different things in English, and it’s sort of convoluted, but I think that that’s probably the simplest explanation.

Yeah, most likely.

The oldest form that I can find has it as piperino, and arino is another one of those kind of goofy suffixes that makes the word funny and exaggerates its qualities.

Wow, thank you so much.

That’s great.

So you’re going to be country line dancing and singing the song and knowing what it means now.

That’ll be perfect.

And next time when we do an opera song and we line dance to that, we may have to call you back.

Please do.

Tell your two peperinos that we were happy to talk with them, all right?

I will.

Thank you so much.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Sherry.

Bye-bye.

How sweet is that, right?

That’s awesome.

A line dancing, country line dancing with two people.

Well, three of them.

It’s a big band music.

This is a show about words and language and sometimes family.

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