# Z-formation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2008, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104 "2008-12-14T09:10:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shinna_Minna_Ma)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/1 "2008-12-14T09:10:42Z")
My kids walk around saying “don’t make me snap my fingers in a z formation” all the time, yet they can’t tell me where it comes from. I saw some versions on YouTube, but still nothing that tells me it’s origins. Anyone have any idea? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/2 "2008-12-14T09:26:12Z")
The quote or the gesture? The quote might just be something they came up with; the gesture is a stereotypical “sassy black girl” thing. ---
**Author:** ![Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shinna_Minna_Ma)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/3 "2008-12-14T10:18:18Z")
The quote, I guess. The version I hear goes like this: Don’t make me snap my fingers in a Z formation Head rotation\* talk to the hand talk to the wrist OMG you just got dissed. \*could also be “hip rotation” ---
**Author:** ![MrFloppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@MrFloppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFloppy)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/4 "2008-12-14T13:30:41Z")
I think it was popularized on either \*That’s So Raven \*or \*Hannah Montana \*. My 11 year old is still asleep so I can’t confirm. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/5 "2008-12-14T13:42:01Z")
The phrase or the gesture? The \*gesture \*was popular in the 90’s with _In Living Color_. [QUOTE=wikipedia] Men on Film (Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier) - In this parody of Siskel & Ebert, a pair of extremely effeminate gay men, Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather, review films completely based on their potential for homoerotic content. Variations of this sketch include Men on Television, Men on Fitness, Men on Vacation, Men on Art, Men on Football and Men on Men. It was the source of many popular catchphrases such as, “Hated It!” (used for any film/book/program centered on one or more female characters), “Fish!”, “My second favorite form of liquid protein”, “Three words - fa - bu - lous!” and “the yet unheard of Zorro snap, in Z formation!” (almost every sketch had a sassy variation of finger-snapping). [/QUOTE] From there it spread into my white suburban world mostly as a joke. An emphatic “sealer” to an argument or point well made (in the maker’s estimation, at least.). I have no idea where the phrase comes from. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/6 "2008-12-14T13:58:05Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > The phrase or the gesture? > > The \*gesture \*was popular in the 90’s with _In Living Color_. > From there it spread into my white suburban world mostly as a joke. An emphatic “sealer” to an argument or point well made (in the maker’s estimation, at least.). > > I have no idea where the phrase comes from. Hmm… I thought it was the other way around. I thought the gesture was around before the show, and it was the show that created the phrase to describe the gesture. That’s how I remember it anyway, but I was young. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/7 "2008-12-14T14:10:05Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Hmm… I thought it was the other way around. I thought the gesture was around before the show, and it was the show that created the phrase to describe the gesture. Perhaps, which is why I used the weasel words “was popular in” (which should have been “on”, actually.) It wasn’t in my world before then, but it might have been somewhere. I just wanted to move the discussion back at least 20 years before _Hannah Montana_, and now we can wait for someone else to find evidence that it was a popular gesture in the court of Louis XIV. 😉 But now the rhyme itself has caught my fancy. This page collecting [Schoolyard Taunts](http://www.cocojams.com/taunting_rhymes.htm) first saw it on October 2, 2007, so it may indeed be new. One girl from the Philippines sent it in, which indicates it’s not a localized phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/z-formation/477104/8 "2008-12-14T17:36:47Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Hmm… I thought it was the other way around. I thought the gesture was around before the show, and it was the show that created the phrase to describe the gesture. > > That’s how I remember it anyway, but I was young. > > -FrL- No, I don’t think so. the Men on Film would give snaps instead of thumbs (so a movie could be snaps up or snaps down) They would give snaps in various formations that got more and more complicated as the show went on. Two snaps up in Z-formation was just a particularly catchy variant, which I believe they only used the one time (in reference to the Zorro movie). The big-circle snap was pretty good too, but never caught on.