[sw-l] thumb diagonal down

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
February 28, 2005

Stefan Wöhrmann wrote:
> Thumbs are difficult to write ... and lots of misspellings can be seen 
> here
> So I do not know how to write this sign for "Benzin" in DGS
> Thanks for your support

Hello Everyone, and Stefan -
Thank you for this question. I love getting questions from all of you, 
and you always have my support!!

Yes, I know the sign for "benzin", which means gas, automobile 
petrol....the person is using their thumb to show the action of putting 
gas into a car...

And although thumbs can be weird, they do not have to be hard...Let me 
give you an example...You may be surprised to know that I do not care 
if the hand is facing palm down in this case...the thumb direction is 
what matters, not the palm facing direction..Just as long as the thumb 
is going in the right direction, they will understand the sign...So 
rather than worrying about a palm facing that does not exist in 
everyday writing, be flexible and choose what you have, and then use 
the movement arrows to give you the feeling of that down diagonal 
movement...the palm facing does not have to be in the diagonal if the 
movement arrows give you the information anyway...So I would choose one 
of these, and then see next message for my two ways of writing the same 
sign...


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