I had heard a story that it can from a British saying, some one called it a "split arse" because of the way it makes your butt feel as the "G" forces spit it around the seat 
I cheat 
I ran fraps and did the maneuver a second time, so the stick movement is live, while the other two are from the film.
I do remember an explanation that an old barnstormer by the name of Cecil Coffren once told me. Cecil explained that the Split S was a maneuver that the early Mail carrier pilots used to drop down through cloud cover through a vertical column of air . Attempting to stay over a range station in bad weather to get to an airport. They used two different maneuvers one was the split S and the second was a Spin. The Spin was actually the preferred method if they were trying to get down through an overcast. The split S was used if they found a hole in the ceiling. The flew split S’s back to back, staying in a vertical column.
Cecil was 74 in 1970 when I flew for him, towing banners over the beaches of New Jersey and New York. He flew Mail in the late 20’s and was a sky writer in the 50 & 60’s If you ever saw the beginning of Sesame Street. Cecil Coffren did the Sky Writing for the opening of that show. Not the sky typing that is sometimes done today by 5 aircraft flying in formation but actually written in script by one single aircraft, forming one letter at a time. It’s not an easy task. The letters have to be formed one at a time, joined like the written word, but also on an angle of 45 degrees so that people on the ground can read them.
