What is that gesture called?

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated  Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500, our sage hen
<sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> writes

>  >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic
>  >"Yess!!"
>   ~~~~~~~~~~
>  I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one
>  application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where there
>  were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.")  Semi
>  drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead apparatus
>  made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture.

If the gesture is made with the clenched fist held so that the fingers are
horizontal, then it is a friendly request to a semi-trailer driver to honk his
horn.  I learned this gesture either in 1966 or 1967 from a college friend.
The gesture is made gently---it is a friendly gesture, remember---and there is
only a single downward pump, as the truck driver is only going to give a single
blast on his horn.

There is nothing inherently political to this gesture---it can be made to any
semi.  Sure, someone in a street demo might make this gesture, but the
thought of semi-trailers joining a political street demonstration is rather
mind-boggling.  Anyway, for obvious reasons of safety, a semi-driver finding a
demonstration on the street ahead of him will wither make a detour or call for a
police escort.

I have a suspicion that the gesture originated not in trucking but in
railroading, dating back to the days when all locomotives were steam engines.  In a
steam engine the engineer has nothing resembling a dashboard in front of him.
Instead he has a throttle, a Johnson bar, and the air brake controls in front
of him,   With the exception of Shays and cab-forwards, he has a very narrow
workstation, since the boiler restricts him to a very narrow window looking
forward.  There is not much space for a whistle button to be placed in front of
him, so the whistle control was probably a cord hanging down from the roof of
the locomotive cab, said cord running over the top of the boiler to the whistle
which was mounted somewhere on top of the boiler.

Still, many semi tractors must have an overheard control for the air horn,
which is frequently mounted on top of the tractor cab.

Linguistic note:  the horn on a Diesel locomotive is still called the
"whistle" even though Diesel locomotives use an air horn.   If all engineers are
supposed to blow a whistle at a particular point on the tracks, there will be a
sign (called a "whistleboard") by the side of the tracks carrying the letter "W".

The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long
long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing.
Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with the cryptic
inscription
   -
   -
   .
   -
This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long.

While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson:
Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il Principe", a
title best translated into English as "The Ruler".  "The Art of War" was by
Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.)

Aside to Wilson Gray: the Britannica (Fifteenth Edition, volume 3 page 361
article on "Clausewitz") reads:
<begin quote>
In maintaining that "war is nothing but a continuation of political
intercourse with the admixture of differnt means," he denied that war is an end in
itself.
<end quote>

               - Jim Landau