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From: bradr@ingres.ARPA (Brad Rubenstein)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Signs for "Gay"
Message-ID: <145@ingres.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 17:54:40 EST
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Posted: Wed Nov  6 17:54:40 1985
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In article <586@osiris.UUCP> jcp@osiris.UUCP (Jody Patilla) writes:
>[...]
>	I asked a friend who works at Gallaudet, the college for the
>deaf in Washington, about signs for "gay" and he showed me something
>similar to the above. It's a "g" sign on the tip of the chin that (he
>says - I wouldn't know) also looks like a "q" (for queer) and a limp
>wrist. [...]

Now that's interesting.  For those that don't catch the reference, the
handshapes for "g" and "q" are the same in the fingerspelling alphabet
(they differ in the orientation of the hand), and a common way in which
signs evolve is by alteration of the old handshape to the letter of the
english-language word corresponding to the new sign.  For example, a
common sign for COMPUTER is the same as the sign for THINK, except that
fingers form a "C" handshape.

What strikes me is that I never associated the letter "q", hence QUEER,
with the sign mentioned above.  I wonder if the person who made that
interpretation was gay-identified?  I'm thinking that maybe the sign
has different connotations to straight and gay signers,
because of a coincidence in the correspondence between handshapes and
letters (I mean, the "g" GAY/"q" QUEER confusion).  Just a hypothesis.

Ah, natural language.  This could never have happened in LISP.

	Brad
-- 
	Brad Rubenstein			Project INGRES/BARTOK
	Computer Science Division	ARPA: bradr@ingres.berkeley.edu
	University of California	UUCP: ...ucbvax!ucbingres!bradr
	Berkeley, CA 94720		PaBell: (415) 642-8149