GEICO ad

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: GEICO ad
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> 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
>

And. as fate would have it, "dap" is new to me in this sense. I'm
familiar with "dap" = "well-dressed" and "jump dap," which means the
same as "jump sharp" (= "dress up," for the terminally lame).

-Wilson Gray