GEICO ad

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Mon, 4 Oct 2004 16:33:43 -0400,  Wilson Gray
<wilson.gray at RCN.COM> writes:

>
>  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.?

palm-slapping?  Do you mean high-fives?

Both MWCD10 and MWCD11 give 1981 as their date for the term "high five".  The
gesture, however, has been around much longer.  Specifically, in the 1968
move _The Producers_, Bialystok and Bloom (played by the white actors Zero Mostel
and Gene Wilder) at one point use a high-five as a congratulatory gesture.

One of the ways in which the high five spread into general usage was via the
"Fun Bunch", a group of five players on the Washington Redskins football team
back in the 1970's who after every Washington touchdown would gather in the
end zone to do a celebration routine that ended in an airborne mass high-five.

This may partially explain why (among white Americans) the high five is
usually used either in celebration (as by the GEICO squirrels) or at sporting
events.

Questions:
1.  What is the significance of the "five"?  Is it because the hand has five
fingers?
(I do not think it has anything to do with the fact that the Fun Bunch had
five members).
2.  Can the high five be traced back in general (i.e. white) American society
before 1968?
3.  Am I correct in assuming that the high five and the handshake are simply
variations of a basic non-verbal symbology, saying "I welcome you with no
weapons in my right hand"?

Now for a less than useful datum: the high five was NOT used at the Battle of
Waterloo.  Instead, according to at least one eye-witness, the handshake was
used as a celebratory gesture among British soldiers.

    - James A. Landau