In article ,
Kay writes:
|
| If you shake an apple and you can hear its pips rattle it is ripe.
|
| Er, no. That is one of the characteristics of a pippin. It does
| not work for all other apples.
|
| I thought 'pippin' indicated that it had originated as a seedling, in
| which case there's no reason why all pippins should share that
| characteristic. Does it work for Allington's Pippin, for example?

Dunno. It may well have got that association because it applies
to Cox's Orange Pippin, but it also applies to some apples that
aren't normally called pippins. Note that the term 'pippin' is
much less well-defined than you imply. I can't remember where I
saw that association, but it was somewhere fairly reliable, though
it could well have been an aberration.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.