Fw: [USA-L News] British Deaf Association in controversial posterdrive

[Mark Mandel]

Funny, I didn't think this was recognized as rude outside the USA.
To be specific:
HSH:      middle finger extended, other fingers closed,
ORI1:     wrist/palm supine,
ORI2:     finger direction approximately toward the object of the rudeness
     (who/which need not be the person addressed) OR
     back of hand toward object, finger upward
MVT:      "placement", i.e., just what is needed to move from the previous
     location to the indexical location OR
     sharp (but often short) movement along the direction of the
     extended finger

The usual equivalent in spoken USA English is "{Fuck/screw}
{you/him/her/that/them} !"

Be careful what you call "natural", Des. The gesture current in the local
Hearing culture, or several of them, but culture isn't nature. In fact, I
believe that this hsh is used in Swedish fingerspelling.

   Mark A. Mandel : Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company
          Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Senior Linguist
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com




Professor Des Power <D.Power at mailbox.gu.edu.au>@ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA> on
10/12/2000 11:08:06 PM

Please respond to D.Power at mailbox.gu.edu.au


It does! - and in my (southern) dialect of Auslan it means "lazy". :-) Im
not
sure why you would have a hard time believing that? How could one hold up
the
finger without movement - there is of course vertical movement of the arm
and
hand as the sign is made - it couldnt be otherwise. I should add that
vertical
movement of the sign with more intensity (as usual) intensifies the meaning
of
the sign. Its becoming unfashionable (and isnt used where I now live in
Queensland - which is northern dialect). Its a bit too like what is (in
Australia - and I think elsewhere??) a very vulgar natural gesture telling
the
viewer just what is thought of them and any proposal they may have made to
the
user!!

Cheers

Des

Don & Theresa Grushkin wrote:

> The article below says the middle finger sign (I'm assuming they mean the
> middle finger) means "idle" in BSL.  I have a hard time believing just
> holding up the middle fnger means "idle".  I'm suspecting that there is
some
> movement involved.  Can any of you BSL users out there help clarify this
for
> me?
>
> Thanks,
> Don Grushkin