All-Done Clappy Hands

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Holly. I’m calling from snowy Schenectady, New York.

Hello there, Holly.

So here’s what happened. I was posting on Facebook, and I wanted to express that gesture of satisfied completion that you get when you go, when you slap your hands past each other in that kind of, you know, I’m a carpenter knocking the dust off my hands kind of way.

And I realized there’s not really a word for that or a phrase for that that can express that in any kind of economy. And so I thought maybe you guys could think of one. Or maybe if that gesture has currency in other cultures, maybe other cultures have a word for it.

Wow. That’s a big one.

So I’ve just done something or I’m like, I’m all finished with this situation. I’ve had enough of this. And I’m like wiping my hands against each other as if there’s dust to remove. And then I’m walking away from the scene.

Yeah. And there’s a sense of like really satisfied, you know, job well done, that kind of thing. And I think actually I was thinking about it recently that there is particularly in the way I was about to use it on Facebook. I think there’s sort of an element of kind of irony about it, of sort of self-deprecation. That kind of like, you know, where the denotation is, or the connotation is kind of undercutting the denotation a little bit.

Interesting. I don’t know of a term for that. I really don’t. I would just call it the all-done hand gesture.

Yeah, and what I actually ended up using on Facebook was all-done clappy hands, which I thought, you know, is not really a particularly elegant phrase, but at least people would know what I was talking about.

I like it. I like it. And it’s kind of got that same sense that you’re talking about, about sort of self-deprecating but also really satisfied. All done, clappy hands.

And I don’t know of a term in ASL for this. I mean, they have gestures for done and finished in some other American Sign Language. Sorry. They have gestures for done and finished, but I don’t know that they have a special name for those gestures. It’s just done and finished.

Well, and the other thing, I mean, I love all-done clappy hands. I can’t think of anything better. I was thinking of Pontius Piloting, but that’s not exactly it. There’s a nice rhythm, all-done clappy hands.

Yeah, all-done. You’re right. There’s something nice about that. It’s got a really great rhythm.

But you were mentioning using it on Facebook. I mean, how would we, is there an emoji for that? How would you come up with an emoticon for that? Get cracking. Figure it out. Holly, do you think you can do one?

A-D-C-H? Maybe it’s just A-D-C-H.

What’s that? All done clappy hands. The phrase would have to gain some currency before we could shorten it and have anyone have any hope of understanding what we were talking about.

You’re right. You’re right. But if you’re writing in text, you’re just going to put, I’m done or done or finito. But I love all done clappy hands.

I’m glad you like it so much, Martha.

I do. Oh, I like it too. But in text, you’ve got words that already exist that you can use.

Exactly. I would be curious to know if anybody listening has another term for it, or alternatively, if we can just publicize the heck out of this and popularize it. All done. Clap your hands.

Holly, we’re going to try to make this catch on. What do you think?

Awesome.

All right. All right. Thanks a lot.

Thanks, Colin Halle.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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