wrist flex versus rotation

Valerie Sutton signwriting at MAC.COM
Sat Jul 7 00:50:08 UTC 2007


On Jul 6, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Cherie Wren wrote:
> The palm faces in to the body (with no change), but the fingertips  
> rotate from horizontal to pointing down...  the movement, as I  
> watch my arm signing it, is entirely in the forearm.
> cherie

Exactly! This is matter of terminology...In this case you cannot use  
the normal Rotation Symbols, but you can use either a Wrist Flex  
symbol OR different kinds of traveling symbols...

We have a specific terminology in our system. The word "Rotation" is  
defined a little differently than you are defining it...

What I call a "Rotation Symbol" means 2 things:

1. The palm facing turns over to another palm facing (black, white or  
one-half changes).

2. The hand and arm DO NOT TRAVEL. They stay in one place.


So your sign may rotate from a generic English descriptive point of  
view, but it is not a movement that uses a "normal Rotation Symbol"  
in SignWriting. It travels...it does not stay in one place. And the  
palm facing does not turn over.

So there are two ways to write it...(see examples below):


1. Simple Movement Symbols
Write a curved arrow that shows the path of the fingers traveling  
down. I have seen people write the sign for WOW like this....maybe  
with some Fast or Tension Symbols added...

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2. The Wrist Flex
which is not just up and down like the signs for YES and CAN, but are  
also SIDE-TO-SIDE flexing of the wrist too. That was what I had used  
to write the signs for ARGUE or WOW....It was side-to-side flexing:

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