What is the meaning behind saying "Hip!" while tossing things?

July 24, 2013 5:38 PM

I saw a clip from the Disney cartoon series "Sofia the First". It's from the episode "Blue Ribbon Bunny". As Soifa tosses blueberries for her rabbit friend Clover to catch, she says "Hip!" during each toss.

There's a clip of the show here (situation starts at 3:05 mark) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkQCz2K9knI

What does saying "Hip!" in this context mean? Is it a variant of "Hip! Hip! Hooray!" (which doesn't match context to me)? Is it something said in "old times"? I'm wondering if this is a made up thing for the show or what else.

posted by lankford to Writing & Language (11 answers total)

It reminds me of "Hup!", or the sound that circus acrobats use when tossing objects or each other.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:03 PM on July 24, 2013

It's probably "hup" or a variant thereof. The best site I can find is on the wikipedia page for "flying trapeze" - the word "Hup" is defined as "Signal to leave the board and/or the fly bar. Sometimes used by the catcher to tell the flyer to let go after a catch when landing in the net." - Generally it's used as communication between two people in circus stuff to be like "I'm doing this thing now". It doesn't "mean" anything exactly.
posted by brainmouse at 6:03 PM on July 24, 2013 [3 favorites]

I think the context is more like how you might say "heave!" when coordinating a pull of the ropes, "catch!" to coordinate throwing/recieving, "fore!" to alert others a golf ball is airborne.
In "hip-hip-hooray", the "hip" is an interjection to get attention, which makes sense when throwing something for someone to catch.

I'm guessing it's an old-timey use from coordinated manual labor - maybe it has tallship/navy origins, or perhaps chain-gangs, something like that. We don't do as much coordinated manual labor these days.
posted by anonymisc at 6:03 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

I can't give you where it came from, but we used to train our hound dogs with something similar. In our accent, it sounded more like "hai-ip". We used it for throwing things at the release and for warnings when the dogs would stray to far away or lose focus. Our mix at the farm and her terrier buddy are both trained to respond to it.
posted by Tchad at 6:04 PM on July 24, 2013

I believe that in cartoon vernacular "hip" and "hup" are meant to be interpreted as indications or measures of heaviness and effort.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 6:05 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Anecdata only; my uncle trained bird dogs, and that was his command as he guided them to the "practice bird" which was a square of cloth tied to a monofilament leader on a twelve foot cane pole. Normal dog language, one syllable, attention getting sound. Unfortunately, he used it on kids also, like "Heads up" when something was thrown in your direction.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:05 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

My father always says this when he is lifting or pushing something. He's Welsh and sure enough "hwp" -- pronounced a bit like hwoop -- is the Welsh word for "push." There's a suggestion that the word is based on the English word "up."
posted by seabound_coast at 7:11 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Really enjoyed reading the answers so far. Thanks everyone.

And when I put closed captioning on while watching from my on-demand service, it does say "Hip!".
posted by lankford at 12:50 AM on July 25, 2013

maybe the same Hip! that we retain in Hip Hip Hooray!?
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:31 AM on July 25, 2013

Following up on brainmouse's suggestion:

We were briefed as to what would happen on the flying trapeze along with commands that would be called out. A person from the class was chosen to be an example and the instructors called out the commands which were:

Ready: bend your knees
HUP!: Gently jump from the platform with your arms extended straight out (locked arms)

...I followed the commands and “hupped” ~ I’m very happy they don’t say jump because that sounds more terrifying to me. “Hup!” seemed much less scary.

posted by MonkeyToes at 4:46 AM on July 25, 2013

I think "hup" in the circus environment does mean something: it's short for "heads up!" or "watch out, here's something for you to catch," (ball, person, chainsaw, etc.)
posted by glasseyes at 1:54 PM on July 25, 2013