dip

Paul Simon once said that there are 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are more ways to tell a friend you’re leaving. Dip originated in the 1990s, a decade that also brought us synonyms motor, jet, bounce and Audi.

This short form of what was originally “I’m Audi 5000” was popularized by a song about cars by A.L.T. (a.k.a. Another Latin Timebomb) in 1993 that also included silly lines like “You want it, you got it Toyota, I gave Impala a holla because he’s got the Mota.”

While perhaps not as common as it was 10 years ago, motor can still be heard regularly from Carson Kressley on the gay makeover show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The more popular bounce has many other meanings, but this one may have been cemented by LL Cool J’s plea to Jennifer Lopez in the 2002 song All I Have: “I promise I'm not a phony. Don't bounce baby, console me.”

A. C. Kemp | October 21, 2004