Friday, March 03, 2006

About YappaDingding

A yaba dingding is a pre-Columbian wall sconce. I once saw some beautiful yaba dingdings on Roatan, a Honduran island populated by the Garifuna tribe. The term "yappa ding ding" is a Garifuna expression meaning "something worth less than nothing". How these terms are related is a mystery (at least to me), but it's a good guess that the Garifuna, who have a fascinating culture stemming from the intermingling of escaped slaves and persecuted Carib indians, do not place a lot of importance on wall sconces.

I chose the name for no particular reason except that I always liked the name yaba dingding, but Yabbadingding is the name of a song and I didn't want to get confused with that. Plus I thought the meaning of yappa ding ding, if true, is sort of funny, and I like the handle Yappa.

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