JK....I have a new SIL, and he is a gator. He is giving my daughter grief about the gig 'em, like the "chomp" is a great thing, and I remember reading a thread a long time ago about the origin of the gig 'em....something to do with gigging frogs...such as in TCU, I think.

Anyone know the real origin, or will I just have to pick the most plauible smart a** answer and go with it?

Oh yeah, Rule #1, and proof she is an Aggie fan...



That's the SIL and all the little Aggie grandkids.

would.

And I've heard the same thing but then I heard the gig came from military inspections and gigging was a "bad" mark on inspections.

Super job following rule #1!

Would.

That was definitely not the question! You pervs! Upholding the reputation of the Zoo I see.

THIS IS THE ZOO



would.

I've always heard that a "gig" is a large fork/trident like object used for hunting frogs and other small creatures. Some guy went around campus before the TCU game telling the Ags to gig the frogs; it caught on; the rest is history.

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Baylor: Where some people are like slinkies. Worthless, but put a smile on your face when you push them down the stairs.
-derek22

Gig 'Em did not come from playing TCU!!! I'm so tired of hearing that!

A Gig is an infraction or mistake on a uniform inspection.

a gig is an infraction? but the hand sign is a thumbs up?

this is madness!

A gig is an infraction, but why would we ever want to give the other team an infraction?

Makes more sense that we would want to stab them in the jugular.

[This message has been edited by BrightAg13 (edited 2/26/2012 3:18p).]

Chips=troll

"At a yell practice before the 1930 TCU game, A&M board of regent Pinky Downs '06 shouted, "What are we going to do to those Horned Frogs?" His muse did not fail him as he improvised, borrowing a term from frog hunting. "Gig 'em, Aggies!" he said as he made a fist with his thumb extended straight up. And with that the first hand sign in the Southwest Conference came into being.
[ For a fuller history of the Gig 'em thumb signal, read "Football Hand Signals" by Paul Burka, Texas Monthly ]"

infraction em

Wow, I learned something today.

thank you brother Russ--that is the history that I was brought up with as well. Makes sense now we gig-gators and cajuns.

Pinky was referring to a frog gig which was either a two or three point implement for catching frogs. Each point had a smaller barb or "gig" on it to keep the frog from getting off. Gigging frogs was and is a popular past time in East Texas and Louisiana. I think Pinky was imitating setting the barb when he jerked up his thumb and yelled "Gig'Em." And the rest as they say, is history.

Pinky Downs, class of 1906 and a member of the Board of Regents from 1923 to 1933, is credited with the Gig ‘Em hand sign. At the 1930 Yell Practice before the TCU football game, Downs shouted out, "What are we going to do to those Horned Frogs?" Answering his own question, he replied, “Gig ‘Em, Aggies!” while making a fist with his thumb extended. A “gig” is a spear-like tool used for hunting frogs. The gesture became known as the first hand sign of The Southwest Conference.

http://traditions.tamu.edu/traditions#gigem

That is when the hand sign came to be, but I seem to remember the term "Gig'em" or "Gig'em Aggies" was around before that. Pehaps the demerit gig was the origin of "Gig'em" and Downs used a play on words to create the hand symbol?

Ive always understood: Grab a broom, make the gig em thumbs up, hold the broom handle next to your palm, inside your fingers, with the thumb pointing up and laying along the handle. Now pretend the broom is a trident, and you are trying to stick a frog on the end nearest th floor You jerk your hand upwards before coming down.

OMG... Will penicillin kill that kind of infraction?

The story i heard when i was a freshman was that way back when there was this pisshead who was a real ass about giving demerits for uniforms. He got kind of a reputation and other guys started saying "gig'em" when they saw him. Gig was supposed to be the nickname for the demerit.

And the TCU story is wrong.

It appears in the yearbook as early as 1919 and there is a yell book that features a Gigem yell that predates the pinky wilson story by 2-3 years.

I will always like Gig'em, but I have to admit to someone outside of a&m it can only come off as a very unoriginal thumbs up sign.

quote:

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OMG... Will penicillin kill that kind of infraction?

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I don't know. Let's call the Center for Infractious Diseases.

I've seen 'em play since way back when
And they've always had the grit.
I've seen 'em lose and I've seen 'em win
But I've never seen 'em quit.

Just FYI, the infraction form of "gig" is not Aggie-specific. See the movie "Cadence" for an example.

FWIW I've always heard the TCU explanation, with the infraction meaning of gig being a coincidence.

Admittedly apocryphal, but what I always thought:

I always heard that in Science Labs, groups of students would go out into local creeks and along the Brazos to gig frogs, put them in sacks and bring them back to do experiments on them. Then, in the "dressing room" (or whatever they called it back then) while suiting up to play TCU during the 19-teens, one of the players said something like, "You know what we need to do to those Horned Frogs? We need to gig them like we did those frogs Tuesday night for Science Lab!"

Then, during the game, the offensive players yelled "Gig 'Em" to encourage the defensive players who were trying to knock the snot out of the TCU players, and it caught on from there.

Question: Damn it! Why didn't they take more careful notes about these traditions when they started them?

Answer: Because they didn't know they were starting a tradition, the origin of which we'd be trying to trace in 2012.

The expression is probably almost, if not, 100 years old.

I've seen 'em play since way back when
And they've always had the grit.
I've seen 'em lose and I've seen 'em win
But I've never seen 'em quit.

[This message has been edited by billkemp (edited 2/26/2012 7:59p).]

like I said its as least as old as 1919. Also one thing I always wondered is if pinky downs every graduated from A&M. He doesnt appear in the 1905-1910 year books

Pinky started the Gig'em, before a TCU game.

Also, a "gig" can also be in reference to a "gig-line" when concerning military uniforms. Its not a bad mark, but you can get a bad mark if you're gig-line isn't straight (it's the line that follows your shirt buttons down to the fly on your pants).

On Rule #1

quote:

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That was definitely not the question! You pervs! Upholding the reputation of the Zoo I see.

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Buzzard, I am a little surprised, or, more accurately shocked that many of these comments have been such as they are. Congratulations to your daughter and new son-in-law, and may they have many happy years and may many grandkids be yours. Gig 'Em.

I've seen 'em play since way back when
And they've always had the grit.
I've seen 'em lose and I've seen 'em win
But I've never seen 'em quit.

Gig 'em
Rather than end a conversation with "goodbye," many conversations between Aggies end with "gig 'em," usually accompanied by a Thumbs up. This tradition began at a 1930 Midnight Yell Practice held before the football game against the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs. In an attempt to excite the crowd, Pinky Downs, a 1906 Texas A&M graduate and member of the school's Board of Regents, asked "What are we going to do to those Horned Frogs?"[13] Using a term for frog hunting, he answered his own question, "Gig 'em, Aggies!"[13] For emphasis, he made a fist with the thumb extended. The phrase and hand signal proved popular, and it became the first hand sign of the Southwest Conference.[13] Gig 'em is also the name of one of the school yells, which is used during football kickoffs.[14]
The university's traditions council recognizes another possible origin for the expression. The word "gig" is used in the US Army to indicate an infraction of the uniform code, and the A&M cadets used the same vocabulary. New cadets would quickly learn to fear being "gigged" during inspection for having unshined shoes, unpolished brass, or a non-aligned "gig line." [15]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditions_of_Texas_A%26M_University

Texas Monthly Link
http://web.archive.org/web/20041222000440/http://www.texasmonthly.com/ranch/readme/handsign.php

The TCU "Pinky" story is way better than the infarction crap....

Lets keep with what everyone knows and say that Gig'em comes from gigging frogs...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaziMvV_vIA

quote:

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The story i heard when i was a freshman was that way back when there was this pisshead who was a real ass about giving demerits for uniforms. He got kind of a reputation and other guys started saying "gig'em" when they saw him. Gig was supposed to be the nickname for the demerit.

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This. And I was always told the Pisshead in question was Pinky Downs.