This is bunk. I’m Portuguese and I start by joining the thumb with my pinky, brush it through the other fingers, then raise my thumb as “5”. Nobody I know does that, it’s a personal trait.
Drinking outside a bar in Paris (so table service) with my girlfriend, the glasses approach empty so I turn to catch the barman's eye. He flicks the Vs (I am culturally sensitive so not offended, he means "two more pints?"), I return the thumbs-up. He brings one pint.
That's interesting. How can one differentiate the two then? Does the wrist position matter? A thumb out with the wrist twisted so the thumb is at an angle indicates "1", but a forward thrusted wrist so the thumb is pointing up and towards the person mean "yes, good job"? Is the second meaning lost entirely to the barman?
If you had flashed OK hand gesture, would the barman have poured 3 pints, or thought you were a member of a fringe group?
If you think it isn't real because it was made up, Vonnegut's Mother Night has you covered:
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
I think you're seeing a slightly different narrative. 4chan decided to make people upset about the hand sign, some major news networks obediently expressed outrage, and a whole lot of people who actively dislike said news channels discovered a whole new way to generate headlines.
They were so successful at marketing the idea that the "ok" sign meant White Power that white nationalists started using it that way and the meaning shifted. And since a lot of the 4chan people are deeply racist they were basically saying "let's take over this symbol". And they succeeded.
As far as I know 4chan people were trolling the media and they succeeded. The result is both funny and scary. The scary part is that random people's lives are harmed because of some innocent photo or gesture. This insanity stems not only from media but also the new culture. Hopefully when going back to normality we will not swing too much to the other side.
They only succeeded if you let them. And if you do I'm going to think less of you for enabling them.
Right now this new 'perception' is pretty limited to a certain US-centric news bubble. Everyone outside that bubble in the US, and generally people everywhere else, are likely to laugh in your face if you tried to convince them the OK gesture is a hate symbol now.
Your average person hasn't even heard of this inane controversy. I for one have to seek out the kind of demographic who thinks that way online - because nowhere else could I even find anyone.
That same hand symbol has been super offensive in Germany for decades, but for scatological reasons, not white power ones.
The swastika was a symbol of good luck, the infinity of creation and the unconquered, revolving sun for millennia. Now it's the symbol of the Nazi party and their atrocities. It's not fair, but that's how symbols work. Their meanings can change when new meanings are ascribed to them.
If a bunch of far-right dipshits want to rally around a cartoon frog and what used to be an innocuous hand gesture, then the meaning of those symbols is going to shift. You're the one playing into their hand. You're the one letting the cryptos remain crypto, instead of illuminating and naming their behavior, for shame.
The same people blaring on about them somehow "taking over" a common symbol were, not so long ago, trying to claim that the same scumbags had somehow 'taken over milk' as a symbol of white supremacy.
It's impossible to take these claims seriously. The media will publish anything that gets clicks, no matter how exaggerated or even fabricated, the people making up these claims know they'll get instant coverage and spread their 'cause', and the people spreading the idea that some loser somewhere saying "uh, the middle finger stands for the monolithic purity of the white race" is actually a threat to the fabric of society just enjoy having another thing to be morally panicked by.
He didn't lose his job because of 4chan, but because of ostensibly well-intentioned midwits who believe "4chan succeeded in transforming a symbol" and "fake things can be real". Truly, this type of rationalization is the Bell Curve meme in action.
He was fired because of the reaction -- engineered by 4chan -- of over-intellectualizing social justice nabobs who attend rallies and protests. You guys were literally told the punchline of the joke and still walked right into it.
Obviously the twitter hive-mind went too far in singling this one guy out, and SDG&E colossally fucked up in not doing basic due diligence before firing him. That doesn't change the fact though that there are people out there who do indeed use the hand sign to unironically mean exactly the things that 4chan set out to convince people that it meant. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending otherwise is nothing short of willful ignorance.
The false information that this gesture means anything has everything to do with that man being fired, and contributes absolutely nothing to the awfulness of the Christchurch shooting, but you feel there is somehow an equivalence? Not only that, but you think there's moral superiority afforded to you for making this observation?
4chan generally produces some of the most objectively hilarious scenarios. I recommend watching the "He will not divide us" series by Internet Historian on Youtube.
Perhaps you'd care to explain why this guy has it emblazoned on his helmet. As I have pointed out many times, simply ignoring people whose ideas you find disagreeable doesn't necessarily make them go away.
Because we're all idiots who got taken in on this by 4chan.
The symbol became irresistible to that guy after watching liberals lose their minds at it. If it hadn't bothered the libs, it would have no use to him.
Exactly. The Trump crowd is made up of bullies, trolls, middle class frat boys and other antisocials, while various influencers are feeding them ideas. And horse medicine.
- the aforementioned crowd’s ”others” are being deceived in many ways, and my ”othering statements” are just fine to describe people who enable the aforementioned ”non-others” (also, is ”others” not an othering statement? why don’t you call them marks instead?)
- Ivermectin is indeed safe for humans to take, BUT people are indeed taking the HORSE formulation, not the HUMAN formulation
- Ivermectin may even show slight effectiveness against active covid infection, BUT the jury is still very much out on that one
I think you're missing the point that they would have just rolled with some different symbol instead. People like this don't become violent as a result of liberals losing their minds, obviously.
Semantic quibbling over the provenance of the symbol is a distraction from the violent ethos and activities of those who adopted it.
For the same reason people like him fly the Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag (which was carried into battle against the Nazis). It makes people like you upset, which is hilarious to them.
I'm not defending the flag, just explaining that outrage over symbols simply makes the symbols more powerful. It was flown by some very good people at one point, and I think that bears mentioning, given the context.
Not sure why you claim witches aren't real. I know plenty of witches. While they may not be green skinned and fly on broomsticks that melt in water, there are plenty of people that call themselves witches nevermind whatever characture you have in mind.
The "witches" people were afraid of during the witch-trials were accused of worshiping and consorting with the devil to cast harmful spells or undermine the Christian virtue of a community. Those witches were the product of mass hysteria and opportunistic hatred, and almost certainly never existed.
Careful, is that a singular movement from up to down in affirmation, or a singular movement from down to up as in "what's up"? in some situations, the first would mean send in the assassin to take out that person involved in that thing. that's one you don't want to use at the wrong time.
It's going to depend based on context. In this case, context was unclear and a misunderstanding ensued. I have nothing to back this up except experience, but I think the thumb up is less common is Europe than in the US.
In this specific case, I think the expected answer is to confirm the number by flashing the same sign. A nod would also work, but be potentially less clear/easier to be missed.
The ok gesture would likely have worked as well, since in France they start counting from the thumb. I don't think the fringe group association is well known in France.
Or waved your finger to say no, or as a real French just shout through 'patron ya marée basse, r'mets voir les p'tites soeurs !'. Thumbs up would work too, maybe both thumbs up, once you're sure the guy understood you wanted two pint...
We may use the OK sign to signify 'au poil' (very fine) most often with pinched lips (mock Italian face).
I find it curious that you mention your not being offended at some gesture that happens to mean something a couple 100 or 1000 miles away from where you saw the gesture. Why would it require extra cultural sensitivity to realize that, if you visit some other place, that they have a different language (verbal and non-verbal)?
It's hard to turn off a reflex to something you normally consider an offensive gesture. That kind of unconscious thought works faster than the "…oh, yeah, nevermind" thought.
See also: how many times I've unconsciously started pumping my own gas when I drive through Oregon even though I "know" not to.
Hmm. I still see nothing about a natural law of having to be offended when I misunderstand a different language. For me personally, the whole context shifts. Does your heart start pumping when you see a photograph of Churchill making the same gesture?
It's hard for me to connect your example of filling gas in Oregon to being reflexively insulted. Is that how you feel in your car, reflexively offended by Oregonian gas stations before your cultural sensitivity has time to resurface? Again, I have to say that I am sure personal differences are strong here, because I don't feel an uncontrollable bodily urge to jump put and fill up the tank within 140-220ms [1] of arriving at a gas station before my consciousness kicks in and I can make decisions again.
My natural reaction to flicked Vs is to anticipate danger, "it's kicking off Pru", so I felt rather pleased with myself at recognising the intention of the gesture, hey I'm a man of the world, a sophisticated European; the one pint reveals that I'm just another English schmuck tourist. There is pride, and there is a fall, that's why I found it quite funny.
Sorry for being ignorant but sincere question: where / which culture considers the V gesture offensive?
I'm assuming the V gesture you are referring to is the one that consists of holding up both index finger and middle finger, rather than the one with thumb and index finger.
In various countires with relation to the UK Commonwealth, it's equivalent to giving someone the finger. If you do with a bit of an elbow swing it basically translates to "Shove it up your ass"
> This origin legend states that English archers believed that those who were captured by the French had their index and middle fingers cut off so that they could no longer operate their longbows, and that the V sign was used by uncaptured and victorious archers in a display of defiance against the French.
I guess that's all the keywords needed in order read the original comment fully.
... It must be somewhat awkward to play Rock Paper Scissors among friends. LOL
It's only flicking the v's if the fingertips are pointing upwards, fingers are apart, and the back of the hand is pointing at the person you're gesturing to. We also call it the "reverse peace sign" as it's exactly like that but with your hand pointing the opposite way. Pointing your hand parallel to the ground like you would use scissors is nice and clear as scissors.
During the Olympics, I noticed that many athletes seemed confused about where to go following their races/runs/performances. It always took them a second to orient and proceed in the direction the volunteers wanted them to go.
I wondered (but never did find pictorial evidence) if it might have to do with the common Japanese gesture for "come this way," which, by happenstance, is almost identical to the rest of the world's gesture for "go away."
There's a distinction to be made between counting on one's fingers and communicating a number with one's fingers.
You can easily communicate numbers 1 through 10 to just about anyone around the globe by holding up the corresponding number of fingers. But when it comes to 11 and up, you're generally not going to be able to communicate those numbers in a universally recognizable way. (Although "flashing" one's hands to represent intervals of ten is somewhat well understood.)
On the other hand, it's possible to use your fingers to count to numbers higher than 10, using whatever system appeals to you, regardless of whether others can understand it. The article talks about using the segments between each knuckle.
There's even a further distinction to be made here, though, between using your fingers to count and using your fingers to maintain state. You might, for instance, be able to easily use knuckle segments to count. But to maintain state, you need to make some movement with your fingers (e.g. bending a knuckle) with each transition period and then hold that new position for some period of time. And that can be hard to do with many finger positions.
I did index+middle for 2. They would do thumb+index for 2, and thumb+index+middle for 3. They didn't do index+middle for anything other than maybe "peace sign". So from a distance, my "2" would look like "3" to them. It was a rural area in Germany, in the late 80's, early 90's.
No, not likely in 90s in Germany. What you're describing is primarily a UK gesture. (Wikipedia says also known in Ireland, South Africa, Australia, India, etc.)
I'm in the US and I'm aware of it (granted most 'muricans are not). I'd be willing to wager Europeans would be much more aware of the meaning than what you're suggesting.
Depends on which way round your hand is -- V with folded fingers/palm facing out, it's the peace/victory sign.
V with back of the hand/knuckles facing out would the insult -- supposedly originating from English archers insulting the French at the battle of Agincourt. According to legend, the French would cut off the index & ring fingers from captured English soldiers so they couldn't draw their bow string. So the English would wave the two fingers in the V formation in the general direction of the French in order to insult them! At least that's the legend anyway ...
I assume holding index and middle fingers up. With the German way of counting, usually the thumb would be up as well, meaning 3, so it's easily mistaken as a 3 despite only having two fingers up.
People’s anatomy differ, and with that also how easy it is to move these digits independently. See for example the answer to this question: https://biology.stackexchange.com/q/60075
Apologies, I didn’t realise people struggled to this extent. I’ve taught many people to count this way and not encountered anybody who struggled, but it was ableist of me to assume that was universal.
Came here to comment on binary finger counting; found it'd already been said!
I have trouble with some positions due to the ring/pinkie connection, but for me it's more of an internal count anyway, so something like counting a 'down' finger as '1' instead of '0' makes it a lot more comfortable, or even '1' is finger touching a surface, '0' is not - which can involve moving a digit only a few mm or so.
The 1023 thing does require fine motor control of at least ten appendages, though even legs-arms-tongue gets you to 32, if a bit inconveniently.
I taught a 5 year old that 1 + 1 = 10, and they got in trouble at school for arguing with the teacher. Even after explaining that 1 + 1 = 10 in binary specifically, as the teacher was complaining to the parents "whatever that means". The parents asked me to be more careful with my "teaching".
>I get your teacher was dumb, but technically it could be on the right side.
Let's be fair, a 5 year is only in kindergarten, so I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be fully expecting a 5 year old to be talking about binary or even fully educated in other counting methods than base 10. That doesn't make them dumb. I'm sure that teacher could teach you things without calling you dumb.
Are you saying that my not expecting a kindergarten teacher to be educated in binary math is condescending?
I got your point that 10 in binary is not actually base 10 10, but 2 in base 10. It was just not worth commenting as it was a discussion about a 5 year old conversation not the semantics of math.
I mean, I'd want my kindergarten teacher to be focused teaching kindergarteners. I don't want them to be an expert on calculus, just be the best teacher for a kindergartener. Same thing as "i want my IDE to focus on being an IDE, and not add facebook integration".
I feel like making sure the absolute fundamentals are well ingrained in your kid is way more important than trying to teach them binary.
Important stuff like learning the alphabet. How to read simple books. Things like that.
That was my point. Expecting a kindergaten teacher to do anything beyond those things you listed is not reasonable. It's great if after teaching a day of kindergartners they can then do an evening teaching college classes, but that's so not the norm. Stating that a teacher at this level is not fully versed in binary is not an insult. It's more insulting to think that someone was able to construe that from my comment.
I think it depends on what curriculum your school's using; non-base-10 math is a punchline in Tom Lehrer's "New Math" [1]. Common Core might be getting rid of it?
As a side note, comparing the complaints in "New Math" (from 1965) to those offered about Common Core is educational :)
I was taught binary math in elementary school in the mid 70s. The problem was that they had to teach it to the parents too, unless the parents were not able to help their children with homework.
I like what I got to know as "the Japanese way" to count to 144 on my fingers. I´m sure it´s not exclusive to Japan tho.
Using thumb as a pointer, I count not on the fingers, but their segments. Each finger is 3 segments, which gives 12 per hand. Now, to boost it, one hand is used to count the dozens from the other hand.
Gets me thinking, maybe this is one of the reasons for popularity of 12-based systems in ancient times? Did our ancestors just use their counting fingers better?
> In India, for example, they use the lines between the segments of the fingers to count. This means each digit can represent four numbers and the whole hand can represent 20.
Which is false. This method is indeed "taught" (folk, not academia) in India (and Japan), but it's not the way a majority of natives will actually count in everyday situations.
There are indeed important cultural distinctions re:counting in areas (like tally marks), but articles like these which are plausible yet false (this isn't a shibboleth at all) muddy the waters.
This might interest you.
"Sexagesimal, also known as base 60 or sexagenary,[1] is a numeral system with sixty as its base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, was passed down to the ancient Babylonians, and is still used—in a modified form—for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal
> In India, for example, they use the lines between the segments of the fingers to count.
> This means each digit can represent four numbers and the whole hand can represent 20.
The first part is true, but not the second part. You use the thumb as a pointer to track the lines on the other 4 fingers. So you count up to 16 on each hand. Besides, the thumb has 1 line segment less than the other fingers.
I think this is open to interpretation. I'm from India but actually count 3 per finger (i.e. the 3 spaces on your finger between the lines), counting up to a max of 12 per hand.
The bbc article claims in the UK (and “many countries in Europe”) start with the thumb, but the Inglorious Basterds scene seems to contradict that.
The business insider article also claims people start counting with their thumb in Portugal but I start with the index finger and while I’m not sure everyone else does it, I think using the 3 middle fingers to represent the number 3 (like the British spy) is far more common than using the thumb.
I'm Canadian and I'm assuming it's the same as Brits: We start counting with our thumb but if we represent a number less than 5 without counting then we do not use our thumb. That's why it doesn't contradict what happened in Inglourious Basterds.
English here, and yes counting starts with the thumb but going direct to two or three is just fingers. Middle three for three, not pinky and the next two or the shocker. This isn't universal, but in my experience by far the most common way.
Our spoken and written language is a mess of inconsistencies, why shouldn't our numeracy be!
This scene is a particular pet peeve of mine (I know it's a movie, but everyone needs something to be picky about...).
The character played by Fassbender at one point explains his peculiar accent by being born and raised in a village near Piz Palü (an hommage by Tarantino to "White Hell of Piz Palü" a 1929 silent movie). However, this mountain is located in Switzerland, right by the italian border, far away from Germany.
Still, his cover is blown by a tiny mistake on how he orders beer while everyone glances over the glaring inconsistency of his birthplace.
You could be born in Switzerland to German parents, thus being German (with a funny accent to boot). Germany (at the time) employed jus sanguinis (=your parents matter), not jus soli (=your place of birth matters).
There had also been quite a few Swiss volunteers that fought in the army and the Waffen-SS.[1]
In the context of the special interest that the film devotes to the subject of language, locating the birthplace of the character near Piz Palü is also a very clever move. It is located in the canton of Graubünden (canton of the Grisons), which is the only trilingual Swiss canton (German, Italian and Romansh).
Another side-note: "White Hell of Piz Palü" is also directly quoted in the film: it is shown in the cinema where the finale takes place. And this again is an hommage to (among others) Leni Riefenstahl, who Tarantino admired very much. She played one of the main roles in "Piz Palü".
Basically they do the "normal" 1-5 with one hand (well, one of the several normal ways), then have specific gestures for 6-10 with one hand as well. Use both hands and you get to 100, I suppose.
One thing not mentioned is that finger counting methods vary based on context as well as culture. If I'm counting to myself I start with the thumb. If I'm using finger counting as part of body language like by speaking about three points one by one, I start with the index finger.
Where I grew up, several states north of the Carolinas, three is pretty much always the index/fore + middle + ring fingers. Prior to seeing Jordan do that I didn't recall having noticed someone counting / signaling three with the pinky instead of the index.
Every time I've heard some variation of this, the example is always three. I'm more interested in four. Does the pattern follow through? Because I physically can't hold up 3 fingers and my thumb without the pinky going up to, when I do 3, my thumb is holding my pinky down.
I think French people would do 4 with just the pinkie down. At least this specific French person does :). In my case that means the ring finger is not perfectly up, but still enough that it's clear it's raised.
An interesting exception to this is that American Sign Language (ASL) counts differently from normal American cultural hand counting. For example, three involves a thumb, whereas the normal US/UK idiom is only fingers.
In <local country>, the countdown for launching rally cars is different from the regular order: 5 - all fingers extended, 4 - thumb bent, 3 - pinky bent, 2 - ring finger retracts, 1 - middle finger bent, 0 - index finger points toward road to signal "go".
Wired has some videos on Youtube interviewing a former spy chief. In it she said one of the things that can give you away as a spy is the way you count with you fingers.
I was told while in eastern Europe that, in Russia, you signal numbers by tucking fingers. Just the thumb tucked: one, thumb and forefinger: two, a fist: five.
It is all very arbitrary. The Quentin Tarentino scene was very unconvincing. Fassbinder's character was well travelled, and could have any number of reasons for having a different habit. I bet there were and are places in Germany that differ from the common form, and even that match the English convention; and places in England that match Germany's. (But probably not Russia's.)
Similarly, somebody who left their shoe at the scene of a firefight, if not stupid, would toss the other one immediately.
From my experience of growing up and living in Russia, I have not seen anybody showing numbers like this. People do count by tucking fingers but if they show a number to somebody else they show it with straight fingers, starting with the index and ending with the thumb. Could be some regional thing, Russia is pretty big.
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[ 0.86 ms ] story [ 279 ms ] threadIf you had flashed OK hand gesture, would the barman have poured 3 pints, or thought you were a member of a fringe group?
For what it's worth, this hand sign being a hate dogwhistle is pretty much entirely an invention of 4chan.
They set out to transform a symbol, and they succeeded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture#White_power_symbol
If you think it isn't real because it was made up, Vonnegut's Mother Night has you covered: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Right now this new 'perception' is pretty limited to a certain US-centric news bubble. Everyone outside that bubble in the US, and generally people everywhere else, are likely to laugh in your face if you tried to convince them the OK gesture is a hate symbol now.
Your average person hasn't even heard of this inane controversy. I for one have to seek out the kind of demographic who thinks that way online - because nowhere else could I even find anyone.
The swastika was a symbol of good luck, the infinity of creation and the unconquered, revolving sun for millennia. Now it's the symbol of the Nazi party and their atrocities. It's not fair, but that's how symbols work. Their meanings can change when new meanings are ascribed to them.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white...
If a bunch of far-right dipshits want to rally around a cartoon frog and what used to be an innocuous hand gesture, then the meaning of those symbols is going to shift. You're the one playing into their hand. You're the one letting the cryptos remain crypto, instead of illuminating and naming their behavior, for shame.
It's impossible to take these claims seriously. The media will publish anything that gets clicks, no matter how exaggerated or even fabricated, the people making up these claims know they'll get instant coverage and spread their 'cause', and the people spreading the idea that some loser somewhere saying "uh, the middle finger stands for the monolithic purity of the white race" is actually a threat to the fabric of society just enjoy having another thing to be morally panicked by.
He didn't lose his job because of 4chan, but because of ostensibly well-intentioned midwits who believe "4chan succeeded in transforming a symbol" and "fake things can be real". Truly, this type of rationalization is the Bell Curve meme in action.
He was fired because of the reaction -- engineered by 4chan -- of over-intellectualizing social justice nabobs who attend rallies and protests. You guys were literally told the punchline of the joke and still walked right into it.
Obviously the twitter hive-mind went too far in singling this one guy out, and SDG&E colossally fucked up in not doing basic due diligence before firing him. That doesn't change the fact though that there are people out there who do indeed use the hand sign to unironically mean exactly the things that 4chan set out to convince people that it meant. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending otherwise is nothing short of willful ignorance.
The false information that this gesture means anything has everything to do with that man being fired, and contributes absolutely nothing to the awfulness of the Christchurch shooting, but you feel there is somehow an equivalence? Not only that, but you think there's moral superiority afforded to you for making this observation?
https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/08/08...
The symbol became irresistible to that guy after watching liberals lose their minds at it. If it hadn't bothered the libs, it would have no use to him.
And millions of others who don't fit a single one of those othering statements
> And horse medicine.
Also human medicine for several decades, with perfectly safe dosages and formulations.
Please don't spread misinformation.
- the aforementioned crowd’s ”others” are being deceived in many ways, and my ”othering statements” are just fine to describe people who enable the aforementioned ”non-others” (also, is ”others” not an othering statement? why don’t you call them marks instead?)
- Ivermectin is indeed safe for humans to take, BUT people are indeed taking the HORSE formulation, not the HUMAN formulation
- Ivermectin may even show slight effectiveness against active covid infection, BUT the jury is still very much out on that one
Semantic quibbling over the provenance of the symbol is a distraction from the violent ethos and activities of those who adopted it.
I think you're underestimating lib owning as a motivational factor for these guys.
1. An army supporting the continuation of the enslavement of black peoples.
2. A group (KKK) who would ride out and lynch black people.
3. A very small number of people who fought Nazis.
4. Neo-nazis.
1 out of 4 isn't bad, I suppose...
Not sure why you claim witches aren't real. I know plenty of witches. While they may not be green skinned and fly on broomsticks that melt in water, there are plenty of people that call themselves witches nevermind whatever characture you have in mind.
In this specific case, I think the expected answer is to confirm the number by flashing the same sign. A nod would also work, but be potentially less clear/easier to be missed.
The ok gesture would likely have worked as well, since in France they start counting from the thumb. I don't think the fringe group association is well known in France.
In this situation; as a Frenchy; I would have repeated the count to confirm while nodding. Or waved my hand while shaking my head to refuse.
We may use the OK sign to signify 'au poil' (very fine) most often with pinched lips (mock Italian face).
See also: how many times I've unconsciously started pumping my own gas when I drive through Oregon even though I "know" not to.
Yeah https://web.archive.org/web/20100611222125/http://biae.clems...
It's hard for me to connect your example of filling gas in Oregon to being reflexively insulted. Is that how you feel in your car, reflexively offended by Oregonian gas stations before your cultural sensitivity has time to resurface? Again, I have to say that I am sure personal differences are strong here, because I don't feel an uncontrollable bodily urge to jump put and fill up the tank within 140-220ms [1] of arriving at a gas station before my consciousness kicks in and I can make decisions again.
[1] From your linked article.
What I found is that there seems to be huge difference in cultures about how offended one can be from language (verbal/non-verbal).
Obviously, perceived threat is a different thing altogether!
I'm assuming the V gesture you are referring to is the one that consists of holding up both index finger and middle finger, rather than the one with thumb and index finger.
"I’ve always used the traditional thumb approach (the norm for NZ)."
https://churnewzealand.com/hitchhiking-in-new-zealand/
I also can't imagine anyone (at least in NZ), who would be otherwise inclined to give you a ride, somehow getting irate about it either.
> This origin legend states that English archers believed that those who were captured by the French had their index and middle fingers cut off so that they could no longer operate their longbows, and that the V sign was used by uncaptured and victorious archers in a display of defiance against the French.
I guess that's all the keywords needed in order read the original comment fully.
... It must be somewhat awkward to play Rock Paper Scissors among friends. LOL
I wondered (but never did find pictorial evidence) if it might have to do with the common Japanese gesture for "come this way," which, by happenstance, is almost identical to the rest of the world's gesture for "go away."
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/to...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Ckh80mLlQ
You can easily communicate numbers 1 through 10 to just about anyone around the globe by holding up the corresponding number of fingers. But when it comes to 11 and up, you're generally not going to be able to communicate those numbers in a universally recognizable way. (Although "flashing" one's hands to represent intervals of ten is somewhat well understood.)
On the other hand, it's possible to use your fingers to count to numbers higher than 10, using whatever system appeals to you, regardless of whether others can understand it. The article talks about using the segments between each knuckle.
There's even a further distinction to be made here, though, between using your fingers to count and using your fingers to maintain state. You might, for instance, be able to easily use knuckle segments to count. But to maintain state, you need to make some movement with your fingers (e.g. bending a knuckle) with each transition period and then hold that new position for some period of time. And that can be hard to do with many finger positions.
For the numbers 6-10 China have hand gestures where number of fingers held up does not correspond to the number.
I was confused by this when I wanted to buy something and the lady crossed her two index fingers.
I took it to mean that the item was not for sale (out of stock), but later learned that this is the hand gesture for the number ten.
This is tangential, but why do people count to themselves using fingers? Why not just count in your head?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#As_an_insult
I actually use it every now and then, for example ordering 2 beers at a bar.
V with back of the hand/knuckles facing out would the insult -- supposedly originating from English archers insulting the French at the battle of Agincourt. According to legend, the French would cut off the index & ring fingers from captured English soldiers so they couldn't draw their bow string. So the English would wave the two fingers in the V formation in the general direction of the French in order to insult them! At least that's the legend anyway ...
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_binary
Given that most people cannot move their ring finger independently of their middle finger, this seems like a stretch.
I have trouble with some positions due to the ring/pinkie connection, but for me it's more of an internal count anyway, so something like counting a 'down' finger as '1' instead of '0' makes it a lot more comfortable, or even '1' is finger touching a surface, '0' is not - which can involve moving a digit only a few mm or so.
The 1023 thing does require fine motor control of at least ten appendages, though even legs-arms-tongue gets you to 32, if a bit inconveniently.
It all depends on whether you were writing it or saying it, "1 + 1 = 10" is true in binary but "one plus one equals ten" is not, not even in binary.
Let's be fair, a 5 year is only in kindergarten, so I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be fully expecting a 5 year old to be talking about binary or even fully educated in other counting methods than base 10. That doesn't make them dumb. I'm sure that teacher could teach you things without calling you dumb.
You even do it in this comment, condescendingly,
>I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be [...] fully educated in other counting methods than base 10
Honestly, it's not that big of a deal to know binary or not.
But anyway, that aside, you completely missed the point of my comment. Whew.
I got your point that 10 in binary is not actually base 10 10, but 2 in base 10. It was just not worth commenting as it was a discussion about a 5 year old conversation not the semantics of math.
I feel like making sure the absolute fundamentals are well ingrained in your kid is way more important than trying to teach them binary.
Important stuff like learning the alphabet. How to read simple books. Things like that.
Replace counting in other bases with “theoretical physics” or “woodworking” and it doesn’t read that way either.
I think this xkcd is relevant here: https://xkcd.com/2501/
As a side note, comparing the complaints in "New Math" (from 1965) to those offered about Common Core is educational :)
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA
0 – one
00 – two
000 – three
The popularity of 12-based systems is due to the fact that 12 is divisible by 2, 3, and 4.
> In India, for example, they use the lines between the segments of the fingers to count. This means each digit can represent four numbers and the whole hand can represent 20.
Which is false. This method is indeed "taught" (folk, not academia) in India (and Japan), but it's not the way a majority of natives will actually count in everyday situations.
There are indeed important cultural distinctions re:counting in areas (like tally marks), but articles like these which are plausible yet false (this isn't a shibboleth at all) muddy the waters.
My mother does this, and additionally used to do arithmetic this way.
She never really taught us how to do math this way.
The first part is true, but not the second part. You use the thumb as a pointer to track the lines on the other 4 fingers. So you count up to 16 on each hand. Besides, the thumb has 1 line segment less than the other fingers.
https://www.businessinsider.com/order-a-beer-like-a-german-2...
The business insider article also claims people start counting with their thumb in Portugal but I start with the index finger and while I’m not sure everyone else does it, I think using the 3 middle fingers to represent the number 3 (like the British spy) is far more common than using the thumb.
If I start counting index-1, middle-2, ring-3, my thumb holds down the pinky to display 3 fingers.
Until just now, I had never tried, so I assume it is a practice thing.
Edit: should have read further in the thread. i'm clearly not the only one
Our spoken and written language is a mess of inconsistencies, why shouldn't our numeracy be!
The character played by Fassbender at one point explains his peculiar accent by being born and raised in a village near Piz Palü (an hommage by Tarantino to "White Hell of Piz Palü" a 1929 silent movie). However, this mountain is located in Switzerland, right by the italian border, far away from Germany. Still, his cover is blown by a tiny mistake on how he orders beer while everyone glances over the glaring inconsistency of his birthplace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
In the context of the special interest that the film devotes to the subject of language, locating the birthplace of the character near Piz Palü is also a very clever move. It is located in the canton of Graubünden (canton of the Grisons), which is the only trilingual Swiss canton (German, Italian and Romansh).
Another side-note: "White Hell of Piz Palü" is also directly quoted in the film: it is shown in the cinema where the finale takes place. And this again is an hommage to (among others) Leni Riefenstahl, who Tarantino admired very much. She played one of the main roles in "Piz Palü".
[1] https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=sol-003:1994:69::643 (In German)
Some of the scenes (landscape shots and the avalanche/crevasses action sequences) hold up quite well IMO.
This could explain the accent/dialect, but it would definitely raise more eyebrows than ordering a beer with the wrong finger.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/media/jeopardy-h...
Still, I'm never able to memorise it, no matter how many times I learn it.
- JP: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic3-box-jap.jpg
- US: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic3_md_us_cover.jpg
- EU: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:S3-eu-box.jpg
2: https://i.imgur.com/J7MaBUq.jpg
3: https://i.imgur.com/wORrZjC.jpg
Where I grew up, several states north of the Carolinas, three is pretty much always the index/fore + middle + ring fingers. Prior to seeing Jordan do that I didn't recall having noticed someone counting / signaling three with the pinky instead of the index.
laughs in piano I think I can move multiple fingers independently and concurrently thanks to a lot of piano drills!
"How money is counted in different countries"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87HVlu55mQ
It is all very arbitrary. The Quentin Tarentino scene was very unconvincing. Fassbinder's character was well travelled, and could have any number of reasons for having a different habit. I bet there were and are places in Germany that differ from the common form, and even that match the English convention; and places in England that match Germany's. (But probably not Russia's.)
Similarly, somebody who left their shoe at the scene of a firefight, if not stupid, would toss the other one immediately.