GEICO ad

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 04:33:43PM -0400, Wilson Gray wrote:
> Is anyone else familiar with the GEICO ad in which a squirrel causes a
> driver to run off the road, then joins a fellow squirrel in a
> celebratory round of hand-shaking, palm-slapping, fist-tapping, etc.?
> Such a routine is known as "bapping-and-dapping" in the Los Angeles
> area. I first heard this term used in 1966, at the First Watts
> Festival. A company of black Vietnam vets participating in the festival
> parade performed such a routine as they marched along. After the
> parade, I asked the vets what that routine was called and was told that
> it was called "bapping-and-dapping." Apparently, this term is unknown
> outside of the Los angeles Basin. I've never met anyone from elsewhere
> who was familiar with the term, regardless of that person's race, sex,
> color, creed, sexual orientation, or branch of service.

HDAS has good entries for _dap_ (noun and verb) in these senses, with
cites from the early 1970s but many in Vietnam War contexts.

_Bap_ is new to me, though.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED