In Slang “To Cap” Means “To Lie” but Why?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Gabriel. I’m calling you from Nevada, and I was calling you about the word “capping.” Ever since I was a teenager, this word just kind of appeared in my vocabulary, and I don’t know where it came from. I’ve heard it in rap songs and kids talking about it at school, but the word “capping” is supposed to mean “lie,” and I was wondering where that word came from.

So if somebody tells you something that you’re doubtful about, you say you’re capping?

You say, “Bro, that’s cap.” You say, “That’s cap.” Or whenever you want to say that you’re not lying or you’re not exaggerating, you say, “No cap,” like you’re not lying.

Ah, okay.

Do you remember how long ago you first heard it?

I think it was like two-ish years ago. And I did a little bit of research on it. And I guess it came from these two rapper guys and they said that they heard it ever since they were little. And I was wondering like where that came from.

So you’re still in high school, Gabriel?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, great.

So a couple years ago, that put it around 2018.

Are you talking about the Future and Young Thug song, “No Cap”?

Yes.

Okay, and that came out in 2017.

You know, a lot of people think that maybe that’s where it came from, but the song only charted for a week. It was only on Billboard’s chart for one week, although the album sold very well.

So maybe that song is the reason it became popular. But it actually goes back a lot further than that.

Let me take you back, believe it or not, to the fifteen hundreds. Yes, in the fifteen hundreds, you might cap an anecdote, proverb, quotation or verse.

So this was a kind of verbal jousting game where the goal was to have the last word with the best or most appropriate response of the same kind.

So you might tell me a quotation, say from the Bible, and I would respond with one that I thought was related to that, but a little better for the situation that we’re talking about.

Or you might tell me a proverb about something, and I might respond with one that was better.

Or you might tell me a funny story, and I might tell you one that was a little better, a little funnier.

According to the people around us, observing, would be the ones to respond and cheer or clap or say “amen” or something like that to let us know that we were doing well or not doing well.

And then this kind of tradition continued with Shakespeare quotes and things like that.

You’ll find this sometimes in British movies, even today occasionally, people will just start saying Shakespeare quotes to each other and somebody will say, “Oh yes, that’s from such and such. That’s from Macbeth, the scene two, blah, blah, blah.”

And then somebody else will, say, name and do another quote, and somebody else will say, “Oh yeah, that’s from…”

You’ll just keep naming these quotes.

This is a kind of capping.

Over the centuries, it turned into something else.

So by the mid 1800s, it turned into, basically, it was really about telling jokes, the form of it was about telling jokes, where the idea of capping was about telling a better joke or telling a better story, and you can see it in slang guides where basically it’s kind of barroom talk or pub talk.

And it was still in use this way in the 1980s.

But by the 1940s, there became this thing called capping in the black American community, which was kind of this formalized exchange of insults called capping.

And capping is a direct relationship, has a direct connection to this old idea of this verbal jousting.

So it combines the African tradition, African being from Africa tradition of formalized insults with this European tradition of challenging each other with this, this kind of, um, ability to be verbally aggressive without being physically aggressive.

Does that make sense?

And it goes by a lot of different names, the dozens, the dirty dozens, a trading yo mama jokes is a watered down version of this.

And so these were often exaggerations on someone’s character or the circumstances.

And so in that way, capping became a synonym for stretching the truth or lying.

So when I tell you a joke about your mama, right, I’m not really saying that your mama’s that fat, right?

I’m exaggerating and that’s a lie.

And so to cap meant to tell a lie.

And this continued well past the forties, the fifties, the sixties, it starts to show up in slang dictionaries again by the 70s, specifically associated with Black Americans, and then it starts to show up in hip-hop music, and then it starts up and show up in college slang, and here we are on the phone with you.

Wow. Yeah, how about that Gabriel? Hundreds of years of history and it has to do with verbal contests.

Gabriel, give us a call sometime. You know, we’re not as in touch with the slang as we used to be, but we’d love to hear from from you if you’ve got questions, or even if you’d just like to call us and tell us and keep these old farts in touch with what the teens are saying.

Thank you.

Our pleasure.

Gabriel, thank you so much for calling.

Be well, man.

Take care.

Thank you.

Bye.

So how about that new slang that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years?

That’s really amazing.

We’d love to hear your stories about slang.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send them to us in email.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.