The infamous pound felt around the world

So in case you missed it, right before Michelle left the stage as Obama took the podium to deliver his acceptance speech on June 3, the couple pounded fists. That's what happened. Unfortunately, the professional press and bloggers around the world can't agree on that simple fact: they pounded fists. Instead, what's come out from these past few weeks of international coverage on the pound and what exactly it could have meant, is a whole rainbow of colorful--but often offensive--renditions of the long agreed-upon term.

Just so we're all clear on exactly what we mean by "pound," below I've included both a definition and an example of the word being used in a sentence--courtesy of Scratch DJ's contribution on UrbanDictionary.com.

1. pound

Several definitions:
1.Unit of weight
2.Money in England
3.To hit fists with your home dawgs
4.To have sex
5.To punch or beat someone up

Here's a little story:

One day, Bill wanted to pound his girlfriend, but she was a hoe and wanted 50 pounds to do it. Bill went to the hood and met Henry and pounded fists with him. His fist, may I add weighed about one pound. Bill asked Henry to lend him 50 pounds so he could pound his girlfriend or Bill would pound Henry and send him to the hospital. Henry gave Bill the 50 pounds.

Anyway, now on to the "colorful renditions":

*From Fox news anchor ED Hill, via the popular media-gossip blog, the Gawker: A "terrorist-fist-jab"

*From Cal Thomas, the main writer for the conservative blog Human Events: A "Hezbollah-style fist jabbing"

*From the blog Townhall: A little over a week ago, the fists of Barack Obama and his wife collided in a celebratory gesture and received much media coverage.

*The overwhelming winner is "fist bump." While goofy sounding as hell, it's technically correct, so I'll leave it be.

Also, to give props where props may be due, several in the professional press have also referred to it as a fist-dap. I know, this sounds mad goofy too, but this is actually how the "pound" was originally referred to when it was first made popular amongst African American soldiers during Vietnam. It's thought to have originally been an acronym for "Dignity and Pride."

We learn something every day don't we?