Give it up for the clap!

Matt:

Why do they call it the clap? Personally, I wouldn’t clap if I found out I had it…yikes!

-- Gretchen, La Jolla

Let’s hear it for the French! They gave us the clap. The word. Just the word, of course. Please, no France-bashing. Let’s hear it for snails and frogs’ legs and chain smoking and clapoir, (clahp-WAHR), pustules characteristic of venereal diseases! We English-speakers contracted the word in the 16th Century and haven’t cleared it up yet.