Is FIRPO a Real Put-down?

General Questions
#1

There is a George Saunders short story entitled, “The End of FIRPO in the World,” in which “FIRPO” is featured as some kind of put-down used by the main character’s mother’s boyfriend (and the character himself.)

I don’t have the actual story in front of me, but it was used along the lines of, “Leaving your new bike out in the middle of the street-- what a FIRPO thing to do!”

I can certainly think of derogatory words beginning with F, I, etc., but the story never reveals what FIRPO stands for. (It’s not a surname.) I’m curious as to whether FIRPO is something Saunders just made up to keep people guessing*, or whether it’s an actual insult/putdown. If so, what does it stand for?

*Which is a FIRPO thing to do, IMO.

#2

Googling the term returns lots of different hits. It seems to be a common last name so it probably refers to a person.

#3

Yeah, but if you combine the search with “George Saunders,” all the hits are all caps, so it looks like when referring to the story, it’s supposed to be an acronym.

#4

The closest I have heard is an acronym used by Royal Navy types as an insult.

FRISP = Fucking Repulsive Ignorant Scotch Pig.

The Scotch bit is very important as it really wounds those nationalisitc Scots who absolutely loath the term Scotch when used to refer to Scottish.

I imagine that your term is likely to be something along those lines, but it only works when the subject of the insult knows the meaning.

#5

I was hoping that there’d be an answer to this. A friend of mine has that last name and he’s always hated it. I hope for his sake that that short story doesn’t get made into a popular movie or something.

Haj