GEICO ad

[Margaret Lee]

I remember the GEICO ad and have always been fascinated by it.  I first heard the term "dap" when my children were growing up in the 80's' and 90's. They would say, "Gimme some dap," asking someone to do the fist-tapping, top- to-bottom exchange. It was popular among their friends at school and in the African  African community here in Hampton, VA.

On the other hand, they used "dippin and dappin, and don't know what's happenin" to refer to someone (an outsider) trying to get in on someone's conversation with another, or into someone's business.




Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> 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.

-Wilson Gray


Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D.
Professor of English & Linguistics
  and University Editor
Department of English
Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668
757-727-5769(voice);757-727-5084(fax);757-851-5773(home)
margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu   or   mlee303 at yahoo.com

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