LANDMARK RULING, CASE NO. 11: TEAM DIBS V. TEAM NO DIBS
What are the rules for calling dibs?
There are no official dibs rules: calling dibs is an informal claim to go first or get something first, like the front seat or the last cookie. By this court's rules, a fair dibs needs three things: the thing is up for grabs, you said it first, and you named it. Judge Whiskerton rules that a fair dibs counts.
Team No Dibs is guilty of contempt of playground law.
Sentence: Honor the next fair dibs you hear, and say it with a smile.
The case for Team Dibs
Team Dibs says the word has real meaning, and Wiktionary, the crowd-edited dictionary, agrees. It defines dibs as the right to use or enjoy something exclusively or before anyone else, with the example "I call dibs on the hammock!"
It also has history. According to World Wide Words, the claiming sense of dibs appears in print in the journal American Speech in 1932, and the word historian Michael Quinion links it to dib or dibstones, an old children's game also known as jacks or knucklebones, though he says he cannot explain how a game term became a claim of priority.
Most of all, dibs settles small fights fast. It needs no money, no vote, and no grown-up. Whoever speaks first wins, and everyone knows the rule before the race starts.
The case for Team No Dibs
Team No Dibs says a word is not a deed. Dibs has no rulebook, and even its origin is a mystery: word historian Michael Quinion of World Wide Words says every explanation he has seen leaves "a howling great gap."
The most famous real-world dibs makes their point. In Chicago, people save shoveled parking spots with chairs and other objects after snowstorms. CBS Chicago reported in 2019 that the practice is officially illegal, though the city has long tolerated it, and Streets and Sanitation crews eventually haul unclaimed dibs items away on garbage routes.
Dibs can also be unfair. The fastest talker in the car gets the front seat every time, and the quiet one never gets the window. Team No Dibs says sharing should not be a reflex contest.
The court's ruling
Team No Dibs is right that dibs is not law. But this court does not need a statute to recognize a fair custom. Dibs is first come, first served, said out loud, and it beats arguing.
Team No Dibs is guilty of contempt of playground law, and is sentenced to honor the next fair dibs it hears. The court does set limits: no dibs on a person, no dibs on something that already belongs to someone else, and no dibs on a public street, as Chicago keeps reminding everyone.
How to settle it at home
Write house rules before the next fight. A good set: the thing must be available right now, the first clear "dibs" wins, the claim covers only what you named, and it expires when you walk away. For fairness, anyone who wins two dibs in a row sits out the next one, so the quiet one finally gets the window.
If two people call it at the same moment, flip a coin. If the household still cannot agree, file both sides and let Judge Whiskerton rule.
Questions people ask
- Are there official dibs rules?
- No. Dibs is an informal custom with no rulebook and no legal force. The rules are whatever your group agrees on.
- What does calling dibs mean?
- It means claiming the right to use or have something first, before anyone else, as in "I call dibs on the front seat."
- What are the Chicago dibs rules?
- Chicagoans save shoveled parking spots with objects after snowstorms. CBS Chicago reported that the practice is officially illegal but long tolerated, and the city clears dibs items after the snow.
- Can you call dibs on a person?
- Not in this court. People are not prizes, and nobody can be claimed by shouting a word.