noun a firm handshake that imparts a farewell. Newspaper advice columnist Ann Landers used the term in a column on 27th June 1996, in which she urged 'Embarrassed in Pittsburgh' to give her friend Fred 'a Michigan handshake' 'and tell him to hit the bricks' because he had taken a picture of her sleeping in the nude. Landers' use of the term generated a number of inquiries as to its meaning, and placed the term into the public lexicon. Landers herself pointed to Traverse City, Michigan, in the 1960s as the source of the term US, 1996