By Jamie Gumbrecht
McClatchy Newspapers

Really, the question isn't so deep: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

MCT This T-shirt declares that Kentucky is the originating state of the high-five.

Disappointment. It's the echo of unrequited celebration, of a snub. It's the sound of a high-fiver left hanging.

The tougher question to answer: If we clap to compliment and raise our fists in victory, why do we combine the two for the high five?

The Internet philosophers who ponder it have myriad theories and legends. They hunt for the gesture in old TV shows and sports footage, like a 1977 Los Angeles Dodgers game often credited with bringing the move to sports. The creators of National High Five Day -- it's April 19, mark your calendars -- say it originated in the 1960s with a play on words and palm-to-palm motion that became a tradition for the Eminence, Ky., family of onetime Murray State University basketball player Lamont Sleets.

Yet another tale credits the 1980 University of Louisville basketball team. Around the of L athletic offices, it's practically fact: Yeah, we invented the high five, or at least made it popular.

Could Kentucky be the birthplace of the high five?

Sure, say the folks at WHY Louisville, the product-local pride store that sells a T-shirt that names Kentucky "Birthplace of the High Five." Copping the style of the state seal, it shows silhouettes of our seal's just-that-friendly hand-shakers going in for a hand slap. It's a big seller, landing, appropriately, in the top five.

"The more ridiculous the statement, the more into it I am," says WHY Louisville owner Will Russell, explaining why he high-fived the shirt's designer when he saw it. "There is an actual story to back this up."

Here goes:

In 1980, the U of L Cards were big fans of the low five. After practice and games, they were always slapping hands in celebration. One day, player Wiley Brown went in for a low five with his left hand. (Always with the left; he's missing a thumb on his right hand. Who ever heard of a low four?) Before both hands could clap, player Derek Smith stopped him.

"No," Smith said. "High. Gimme high five."

And there it was.

Brown never asked Smith why he went high, but as the season progressed all the way to the national championship, they kept slapping hands over their heads. Soon, they started jumping. With players far taller than 6 feet, this was not a five for the meek. National TV coverage spread the gesture and lingo across the nation. Slapping hands was nothing new, but Brown says it's no coincidence that the phrase high five caught on about then.

"All of a sudden, it was a reaction: just do it high," says Brown, now the head basketball coach at Indiana University Southeast. "We were trying to raise the roof with it."

IT ONLY TAKES ONE TO START IT

Spencer Kelly, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience who studies gestures at New York's Colgate University, says it takes only one charismatic person to start a fad with a motion of their hands. As president, Bill Clinton had a particular way of holding his hands while speaking; plenty of election hopefuls are copying it now, Kelly says, maybe unconsciously. Gang symbols can be an expression of power and loyalty determined by someone perceived as a leader. Gestures that meant nothing before can become communicative and loaded with meaning.

"It's not like punching someone in the face; that's never gonna catch on," says Kelly, who attended U of L from 1999 to 2001.

High fives, like the thumbs up and the A-OK symbol, are called emblem gestures: they matter only because the community has attributed meaning to them. In the case of the high five, the meaning to us is obvious: Good job! You rock! I rock! Together, we rock!

In another culture where the high five is not so well-known, people raising their hands in preparation mostly look like they're about to assault someone; consummation of the five requires that both parties know what to do, making it relatively unique among gestures.

"You can't leave someone hanging," Kelly says. "You're obligated to finish it out."

IT TAKES TWO TO FINISH IT

Pop culture is well aware of the five and what it means to leave someone hanging. Puddy, Elaine's on-and-off grease-monkey boyfriend on "Seinfeld," abused the high five and was often left hanging. The Todd, the airhead surgeon on the TV show "Scrubs," invents new varieties of the five with almost every episode. Borat, the cultural misfit from Kazakhstan who explored the United States on the big screen last year, often high fives for the wrong reasons, like cheering on sex crimes.

Like the thumbs up and the A-OK, the high five cycles in and out of popularity. What used to be the domain of sky-high sports stars communicating confidence, height and cheer has trickled down to academic teams and kiddie sports.

"It's on its death knell when the chess team picks it up," Kelly says. "The high five could be cool again if it's done in an ironic sort of way. They've taken on all these meanings that are so much more layered than how they started and what they mean inherently.

"The guys who first did the high five, they weren't thinking 'Forty years down the line, this might be an ironic statement.'"

It's already got a T-shirt; now might be time to make the statement: Arm up, palm out, 10 fingers smacking, a little gesture to signify something awesome has occurred.

"My wife loves the high five," says John King, the designer who created the high five T-shirt. "She'll say, if we're doing something, 'If this works out, we're high-fiving.' ... If it's something in the car, then we park and we say, 'Remember 10 minutes ago? We're supposed to high five.'"

And because he loves her and wouldn't want to disappoint her, "I try not to leave her hanging."