GEICO ad

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has a number of cites for "dap," n. & v., referring to similar gestures from the Vietnam War period.The definition there is prob. inadequate, since none of my sources were able to produce the thousand words that might equal the GEICO nature footage Wilson refers to.

 1966 is earlier than any printed source I have.

"BAPPING & dapping" is new to me.  A fellow student once demonstrated an elaborate "trick handshake" to me in the early '70s, but I believe he called it a "jive handshake" used by jazz musicians (regrettably, I didn't make a note at the time).

Which reminds me, I first heard "high-five" during the baseball season of 1982 or '83.  (In merry days of yore, players congratulated a home-run hitter with a hearty handshake instead. How the world doth wag!)

 Anything earlier?

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: GEICO ad
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

-Wilson Gray


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