Did You Know?
"Alley-oop" was first heard by English ears under the big tops of early 20th-century circuses. When acrobats were about to leap to their trapezes, they would often cry the similarly sounding French word "allez-oop" -- an interjection meaning roughly "go up." Both "acrobat" and "trapeze" are also French derivatives, leaping into the English language in the 19th century, so the French parentage of "alley-oop" is not surprising. By the 1950s, the word was also being used on the gridiron and the hardwood for show-stopping arcing passes and leaping dunks. Its latest venue is the half-pipe, where skateboarders and snowboarders pull "alley-oop" spinning tricks.
