Wait What’s Your Name?? Episode 1: Dit Clapper

Note: This is a make your own gif blog. So whenever you see the opportunity, go ahead and create a gif in that brain of yours!

I honestly don’t even know where to begin with my old chum, Dit. There is so much to unpack with an absolute monster of a name like Aubrey Vic “Dit” Clapper.

I guess we should start with the obvious, though. Clapper has got to be the best hockey name of all time, right? My puck friends tell me that “clapper” is slang for “slapshot,” which apparently is the more straight-edge version of Fulton Reed’s Knuckle-Puck? Idk. But it sounds like there is a lot of parallel between ole Dit’s surname and the sport he plays. Nice!

[May I suggest a gif?]

Also, how about the balls on Dit’s parents to name their child Aubrey in 1907? I’m surprised homeboy even made it through high school. Image all the little hellions on the schoolyard beating the fuck out of poor little Dit because he has a girl’s name? Not nice! And what about his old man? Mr. Clapper clocking into his shift at the soot-and-fire factory and telling all his coworkers his handsome son Aubrey was born?Social suicide! Guy was probably the laughing stock of that particular soot factory. Meanwhile at home Mrs. Clapper is just happy as a clam (or miserable…most likely miserable) churning all the butter without a care in the world.

[Gif, perhaps?]

Anyways, the real crux of this conundrum comes with the nickname. What the fuck is up with “Dit”? I did some digging and came up with a few possible solutions* about how this wacky, zany nickname came to be:

The first, and most obvious, is that Mr. Clapper was a Russian spy stationed in Canada to infiltrate their government and share all of their maple-syrup-coated secrets with Russia – now stay with me here – and since Mr. Clapper’s primary communication with his Russian counterparts was via Morse code, he simply spat in the face of the Canadians and called his son Dit, another term for a dot in Morse code. Hide in plain sight, or whatever.

[You make the call.]

Another possibility is that the Clapper’s were really, really pushing their son to be a doctor. DIT = Doctors In Training, everyone knows that. However, I think this one may be a bit farfetched considering that the only training you needed to be a doctor in 1907 was to rub the freshest stick of butter that your mother churned that day on whatever was ailing the patient

[I’d use a gif here. Actually, I’ll just show you this reference.]

The third, and most likely, scenario is that Mr. Clapper had full intentions of turning his son into a cocksmith. DIT = Dick Induced Tourette’s. No really. The internet says so.

What I surmise from the above definition is that Mr. Clapper named his son Aubrey knowing full well the athletic prowess he had backstroking about in his testicles. He knew his boy would be a NHL Hall of Famer. He knew he would dick down thousands upon thousands of women. And he knew he would leave those women flabbergasted, mystified, agape.

[Several gifs. Like a full string of gifs.]

Aubrey Vic “Dit” Clapper. What a guy.

*apparently the internet already figured this out. “Clapper, who went by Vic, was nicknamed Dit for life when a childhood lisp changed his name from Vic to Dit.”

– Rob Jones @robdark_13