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More people punching fists to fight germs

By Sue Vorenberg
Wednesday, January 17, 2007

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The deal is done.

Board members, in their three-piece suits and ties, have agreed to the merger.

As a sign of commitment, the president walks around the room, knocking fists with each one.

Sound unprofessional?

Maybe.

But it turns out the youth-oriented greeting - called the dap - could be a healthy alternative to the handshake during cold and flu season.

UrbanDictionary.com defines the dap as "a fist-on-fist greeting, front-to-front, as if each person is punching the other on the hand."

It's not something you'd expect in formal settings, but the dap appears to minimize contact with germs that usually spread by touching the palm, said Al Zelicoff, a doctor and consultant for Ares Corp., an Albuquerque company that makes disease-tracking and risk-management software.

"It certainly has less surface area contact, and it's certainly a less contaminated surface area," Zelicoff said. "It might be a great alternative for the handshake during flu season."

Its popularity is already growing in some parts of Albuquerque life.

Furniture sales - even if it's selling bean bag sofas - has always been a business where you greet customers with a smile and a handshake, said Tylor Tucker, 19, a shift lead at LoveSac in the Cottonwood Mall.

But more and more, he's seeing the younger crowd - and a few of the older crowd - shift to the dap when they enter his store, he said.

"Sometimes I do that with younger customers - teens moving into their first apartments," Tucker said. "Older couples will sometimes do it, too, to try to be cool. Although it doesn't seem to fit their age."

According to Answers.com, the dap started in the 1960s, mostly among blacks, and has grown in popularity since then. The word dap may have come from an acronym for "dignity and pride," commonly said by black soldiers in the Vietnam War.

Today, the dap is especially popular in gyms, where sweaty palms are the unfortunate norm, said Michael Archuleta, 36, who was shopping Tuesday afternoon at Vitamin World in the Cottonwood Mall.

"It's normal - even with 60- and 70-year-old guys," Archuleta said. "Being in the gym you see a lot of people that don't wash their hands. I don't want to shake with them. That's gross. But hitting fists, that's OK."

To Noel Dalton, 19, a makeup artist at Romeo & Juliet Cosmetics in the mall, the dap seems like a "guy thing" more than anything else.

But keeping her hands clean in this season? That's something she's obsessive about.

"I'm a hand-shaker. It's more professional," Dalton said. "I just wash them a lot. We have antibacterial stuff everywhere anyway, because we're always touching people's faces."

Still, if the dap caught on in more formal settings, she'd go along with it, she said.

"It seems like it would be less germy," Dalton said. "It would be worth it if we could elevate it to a more professional level."

Olivia Ortiz, 50, a manager at Whitehall Co. Jewellers in the mall, said even if it did become more socially normal, the dap is not something she's interested in.

"It's very unprofessional," Ortiz said with a laugh. "Besides, most people, when they cough, germs spread all over your hand. I just take a flu shot and use a lot of sanitary wipes."

That fits with Thelma Domenici's ideas about the dap. Domenici, an etiquette expert and author of The Trib's Ask Thelma column, doesn't advocate its use.

"To me it almost sounds, not comical, that's the wrong word, but I don't see it as an acceptable substitute" to the handshake, Domenici said. "Why don't we just tell people to rub elbows?"

During cold and flu season it is acceptable - if you're the one who's sick - to politely decline shaking hands and explain why, she said.

If you're not sick, however, you should accept the handshake, she said.

"Shaking of the hands is really the universal greeting," Domenici said, adding that to refuse to shake hands when you're not sick "borders on being rude. It leaves that person judging why you aren't shaking hands."

Looking at it more scientifically, however, Zelicoff said he plans to try out the dap on his co-workers next time he sees them.

"I'm going to be very interested in what they will do, because I'm a doctor," Zelicoff said. "They'll probably ask me why I'm doing it."

If they do, Zelicoff is ready to answer with a little data he gathered through a survey of scientific studies.

It seems like ultraviolet light, which hits the back of the hand more than the palm when people are outdoors, might have a natural sterilizing property that makes the dap more sanitary, he said.

Also, the time of contact between hands in the dap versus the handshake is much shorter, which should reduce the number of germs spread, Zelicoff said.

But there are a few things that indicate the dap isn't completely germ-free, he said.

"One thing is when people wash their hands, they tend to focus on their palms, not so much on the back of the hand," Zelicoff said. "It may be that the back of the hand, due to our hand-washing process, isn't any cleaner than the front."

The back of the hand also tends to have more hair than the front, which could trap germs and protect them from being knocked off or dried out, he said.

"Nobody's ever studied which side of the hand carries more germs - at least not in any of the literature I've found," Zelicoff said. "I'm interested in it now. I've never done the dap, but I'm going to start trying it."