A guest on BBC's "Top Gear," an actor, studied American Sign Language / ASL for a stage production of "Children of a Lesser God." While he chatted with the host, he made this ASL sign.3 slices, anchovies and avacado: What does this sign mean?
25 August 2009
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7 comments:
Q: Was the person tapping his nose or picking ? If he was picking then I am opting for a rude one. I will opt for a rude one in any case I reckon.
Oedipus maybe ?
Nope, not PICKING nose ... the ASL site shows the gesture in a short video, and the finger touches and twists the OUTSIDE of the right nostril.
But text accompanying the video says it is a rude sort of gesture that hints that the person is picking his/her nose.
But this is not ASL for picking your nose, it's for a different word.
Ahh, when I think of all the good and interesting things I have learned on Vleeptron...a bit of hebrew, hieroglyphs from Egypt, American Braille, other most interesting subjects. And now ASL. Maybe I might be able to use this stuff one day, who knows ?
The good thing about this PizzaQ is that you can't google the bugger, you have to start from the beginning.
The deaf culture is completely different from our culture, it has its own rules, laws, different cultural background and semantic understanding. And I have barely scrachted the surface with my research.
Now my name is Pat, short for Patrick, good traditional irish name, but suppose we have two people named Pat on Vleeptron ? In the hearing world you would seperate them by giving them a nickname or a monicker like the old bluesmen names, Big Bill, Fat Mike, Long John, Slim Dusty etc (like we got our last names, John's son = Johnson, John the town smith = John Smith etc) It is my understanding that this is the same in the deaf world, you will be given a sign name.
In my case this could be the sign for the letter P and a cross over the chest (sign for Switzerlannd) since my nick here is PatFromCH. Have I got that right, Bob ?
It is my understanding that quite a lot of verbs like flying, walking, climbing etc could be recognized by hearing people, the sings use a semantic style that we can recognize. Is this also correct ?
Now for the first words you learn in any language: swearing ! Since a lot of swearing in general involves sexual reproductive organs you can use your imagination a bit (ie oval sings, stretched fingers etc). I am opting that the PizzaQ i.e. the sign stands for a word that sound remarkably like Paris (has the same amount of letters, too !)
Good first guess, but not a swear word. A bit rude, a bit of a naughty thing to say/sign, but not a swear word or dirty word.
Yeah, I like this PizzaQ because I was able to go to the ASL site, click on a word, and see its video. (And indeed, it was the exact same sign the actor on "Top Gear" had made.)
But you can't search in the reverse direction.
Maybe if we get some more guesses and discussion, I'll say a bit more about my Northampton neighbor, the world-famous Clarke School for the Deaf
http://www.clarkeschool.org/
-- which (according to ancient student myth) chops off the fingers of students who are caught using sign language, as a warning not to sign again.
Clarke strictly (but not really finger-chopping strictly) advocates against ASL, and teaches lip-reading and speech therapy to mainstream students into hearing society.
Clarke believes ASL isolates hearing-impaired people to a lifetime's imprisonment among only other hearing-impaired people. The ASL-vs.-mainstream fight is a ferocious controversy in the hearing-impaired community.
Before inventing the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell was a teacher at Clarke School.
Ah, also, I got the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the fennec symbol all wrong, you taught Vleeptron about Egyptian hierogplyphs.
Being a sign language interpreter for the past 17 years, I've seen many students, and others including myself, use this sign.
It means to be bored or is used when something is boring.
Cheers!
KEN WINS THE PIZZAQ!!!!!
The sign means: Boring!
Welcome to Vleeptron, Ken!
Uhhh ... while I got you on the line ... can you write a comment about the ancient and ferocious controversy among the hearing-impaired community between Signing advocates (as epitomized by Gallaudet) and Anti-Signing "mainstreaming", as epitomized by the Clarke School for the Deaf?
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