damp knickers

[cecil39]

when we were kids if we sat on the damp grass our Mum used to say "you will get the pip if you get damp knickers" i never knew what she meant by "the pip" does anyone else remember having this said to them?

[B00]

was almost too scared to open this post....

I don't know the answer, sorry.

[cupid04]

piles perhaps?

[Buenchico]

This source gives 'pip' as meaning "a minor unspecified human ailment":
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pip
While that's not particularly helpful (in that it leaves the definition 'unspecified') perhaps it indicates that there was never a precise medical condition that was being referred to?

Chris

[cupid04]

Parents said a lot of weird things though! I was told to keep my nose clean,
but they weren't talking about my nose!

[welshlibranr]

think they meant piles!.........we were always told not to sit on cold or damp places, because we would get pips!.........sure that's what is meant!.....

[Quizmonster]

In the early 1400s, the pip referred specifically to a disease of poultry and some other birds. It involved a scaly mucus in the mouth and throat. Within a century, however, it had taken on the more or less humorous meaning of any vague human disease. I can't imagine that knickerly moisture would cause oral mucus as such, but that was the original source.

[scotman]

As well as QM's reply ^ Cassell's Slang Dict gives (for 'get the pip')
[late 19C] To feel depressed, out of sorts, ill

[DrFilth]

they meant piles my mum would tell us off for sitting down on a damp pavement as a kid

[Ankou]

although it used to mean the avian disease (pippe) by the 19th c it just became a reference for someone who was down in the dumps or sick.

"Most references to 'the pip' related specifically to the bird disease, which appears to have been well known and is frequently referred to in print. People in poor spirits were described as 'like a chicken with the pip' etc.

It wasn't until the 19th century that the specific avian references were dropped and people who were were annoyed or dispirited began to be described simply as having 'got the pip'. An example of that comes in High and Low, a novel by the English author Henry Coke, 1845:

"Yes, will you come?"
"I want to come, but here's More says he won't go."
"What's the matter, has he got the pip?" inquired his lordship."

my mum never said that, but i did used to pull very odd and ugly faces and she would say, if the wind changes you'll stay like that.

unfortunately one day it did.

[cecil39]

yes i supose it may have refered to piles, perhaps Piles In Posterior, anyway, luckily i never got it, not yet that is.

[Postdog]

Sugar - not about what I thought!