unsophisticated people listening to popular music of the worst kind. In order to demonstrate that they understand the music's rhythmic nature - an otiose demonstration in fact demonstrating more the gesturer's musical ignorance than anything much else - they move their head and neck in time with the music, forwards and backwards in a curious avian gesture
We have always called this 'bobbing in time'.
The first relates to stray strands of hair. People - usually women - toss their head to one side or the other, in an usually vain attempt to remove to one side a long dangling lock or two. Often this tossing gesture continues as an incessant and surely bad habit even in the absence of offending locks.
But what is this ugly shake or flick called? Surely it must have a name. Does not everything in this world have a name?
Horses do it with their manes, and then it is called tossing. Tossing when applied to the behaviour of people however (men in particular) means something else, and we would not advise its adoption in polite company. Furthermore we are not entirely sure if it may be applied to women, or what precisely it would signify if it were.
One more thought. The tossing of horses' manes is often accompanied by a peculiar sound - a sort of pre-linguistic form of expression. The same might be remarked of human tossing.
