Q: I’m writing a piece about the origins of the fist bump in sports. The conventional wisdom is that it evolved from the dap, the elaborate greeting used by black soldiers during the Vietnam War. While doing research, I found an old story by Stewart Kellerman that may be the first written use of the term. Do you know of an earlier one?
A: As far as we can tell, the use of “dap” for the black power greeting in Vietnam did indeed show up in print for the first time in Stewart’s article, written when he was a war correspondent for United Press International. It appeared in the April 25, 1971, issue of the Pittsburgh Press and other newspapers.
In the article, “Soul Session in Vietnam,” which we’ve reproduced on our blog, Stewart writes of being invited to spend an evening with a group of militant black soldiers in an all-black hooch, or barracks. A cardboard sign taped to a wall read: “Off limits / No rabbits allowed / This area for blacks and blacks only.”
During a rap session, the GIs told Stewart that “dap” came from dep, Vietnamese for beautiful. As far as we know, that’s the earliest written indication of the term’s etymology, though a few other suggestions have appeared since then. Here’s an excerpt from the article in which both “dap” and “dapping” are used:
The blacks arrived in groups of two or three during the night. When each got there he went around the hooch doing the dap (from “dep,” the Vietnamese word for beautiful) with all the others. The intricate dap is made up of dozens of steps ranging from tapping fists to slapping chests.
Blacks say the dap is mainly used to say hello, show friendship and express brotherhood. However, some of the most commonly used gestures (the dap varies from region to region) are symbols for cutting the throats of MPs and shooting them in the head.
Spec. 4 Gary Terrell, 23, of Birmingham, Ala., said his superiors have tried to get him to cut his hair, take off his power band and stop dapping with the brothers.
“I tell them no,” he said. “You ain’t gonna take my soul away from me, you dig. So what happens? I got every rotten job the rabbits can think of.”
The Oxford English Dictionary describes the usage as “U.S slang (originally and chiefly in African-American usage),” and defines it as a “special handshake, typically involving slapping palms, bumping fists, or snapping fingers; chiefly as a mass noun in some dap or to give (a person) dap. Also give (a person) daps.”
The OED, an etymological dictionary, says “dap” is of uncertain origin, but may have come from the noun “tap” or “perhaps (as suggested in Green’s Dictionary of Slang)” from the verb “dab” (to pat or tap).
The earliest Oxford citation for the term is from the publication of Stewart’s article in the May 15, 1971, issue of the Afro-American (Baltimore), a few weeks after it originally appeared: “Blacks say the dap is mainly used to say hello, show friendship and express brotherhood.”
Green’s Dictionary defines “dap” as an African-American noun or verb for “a ritualistic handshake, differing from area to area, involving much slapping of palms, snapping of fingers, etc.”
The first Green’s example is from an entry in Black Jargon in White America (1972), by David Claerbaut: “dap n. a rather sophisticated or complicated hand greeting used by many black people.”
The American Heritage Historical Dictionary of American Slang defines the term as “any of various elaborate handshakes used esp. by young black men to express solidarity or enthusiasm.” It cites the same dictionary of black jargon mentioned in Green’s.
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