h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The 'V' Sign - A9935300
Author: fatkelli - sick of being sick - U181082

This is a flea market rescue, the original is here: A1017154 and this is the original PR thread: F120464?thread=264713

Lots of comments, criticisms and link suggestions are welcome - as usual I feel it ends a bit abruptly so would welcome help with that

k

Hiya Kelli

Just quickly, as I too am - one of my favourite things to teach foreign students is the V sign and how to gesture for '2' in Britain without risking offence. Most of them have genuinely never encountered it as an offensive gesture

Hiya Kelli.

Well rescued . Just one minor point...

'...standing well back from an bow-less adversary...'

should be '...standing well back from a bow-less adversary...'

however I have only had a quick glance at it. Shall look a bit harder later.

Hi kelli, good rescue

Your first two footnotes need to start with a capital letter.

My pending entry "Streakers and Streaking" A9559678 contains a reference to a streaker who gate-crashed the Oscar ceremony, behind David Niven, he was making the peace sign..that's possibly too oblique a reference to include here but it did make headlines at the time (1974) and would just be an excuse to link to my entry, so the ball's in your court

The first and second footnote need capital letters. Will come back later to re-read properly.

Definitely worth telling them then Jack!

Thanks EMMF and Annie, I've fixed those I think that link is too tenuous Annie, I'd have to write in something new in order to make the link make sense.

Although thinking about it, when this one goes into the guide you could get a friendly curator to put a link from yours back to this one?

Do I need to add stuff to my Flicking Vs section? I just wanted to give some well-known examples of the v-sign being used in the insulting sense to mask the fact that nobody appears to know where this *really* came from.

Great entry I've always perferred the british v to the american middle finger...the British has always been a bit more cheeky, a bit more tongue in cheek something thats quintessential British. The American version has always seemed that bit more offensive and aggressive. It may be worth mention the American 'flicking the bird' and this comparison as it'll give american readers some idea what we mean.

I like the churchill reference about using the sign both ways most of the pictures I've seen of him where palm in and it makes me chuckle that although he was giveing the victory sign it was almost certainly his way of saying sod you to Hitler as well..

Congrats hope it gets picked!

Good entry, Kelli! Nicely recued.

Thanks folks

I don't think I want to include much about the US middle finger gesture as I do feel they are different. Hmmm, I might put in a footnote somewhere. Maybe. I'll think about it...

Do you all think the link to the short guide to short words will be acceptable to the eds? I know it is edited, but didn't get a day on the front page. Don't know how they would feel about linking to it but I really felt it was appropriate there...

I'm sure you can. Something about 'three links away from the BBC front page'. Which is why it didn't get a day on the FP, but you can link to it.

V-sign (brit version):

As I understood it, the palm-in version was (and is) derogatory, and Churchill hit on the idea of turning it about, using it as a proxy sign, ie
- palm out for Churchill was
- palm-in for his audience and, by extension, a
- palm-out insult from brits in general to Hitler.
subsequently the palm-out version took on 'V for Victory' and then, later, 'Peace'

An aside: the V-sign seems to be losing ground against the US single finger. I've seen it (the V) used palm-out as a wry, good-natured raspberry: "thrrurrp" meaning "and peace to you, too, brother" (a brit raspberry is a pseudo fart, blowing a rasp through lips and/or tongue).

Hi Rod, thanks for your comments.

As I explained in the entry, it wasn't actually Churchill's idea in the first place, although he is most responsible for publicising it

Right, done a bit of re-jigging of the Pluck Yew section, and added a footnote explaining who Delors is.

Have decided I don't want to include anything about the one-fingered gesture after all, the article is nicely focused and I don't want to lose that , but am still open to suggestion if anyone can think of a way to work it in subtlely - I tend to think it is too convoluted to go into in a footnote.

Any more for any more?

Looking good

You could continue this: 'Outside of the UK it tends not to have the insulting meaning.' with something like this: 'resulting in unfortunate misunderstandings between foreign tourists and locals.'

The young Chinese also use the 'happy' sign in photos, so you could perhaps expand 'in Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan' or change it to 'in East Asia.' One of the photos I won't be including in Azahar's gallery is of me on the top of Baiyun Mountain in Guangzhou, looking sour and sweaty and making a palms-inward V-sign at the camera

I agree that you need to underline the ironic and somewhat playful meaning of two fingers - and the fact that more aggressive intentions are likely to be signalled by the one-finger salute.

TAFN

Thanks Jack, have added something at the end of the intro.

I suspected that the 'happy' meaning was a bit more widespread than just Taiwan but only found a source that explicitly made the translation for that one country so for that.

Ok, ok, have added a bit to the Flicking Vs section about the middle finger gesture. What do you think?

Maybe change 'people visiting Britain' to 'visitors to Britain,' otherwise

Hmmm. Irish persons, what's the situation in Ireland? I'm sure the V sign is understood, but is it also used

The V sign is understood and used in exactly the same way in Ireland as it is in Britain. But I don't know why that should be a concern. The entry doesn't say anything about Ireland, only about Britain.

Thanks Gnomon. What I meant was, shouldn't the entry give mention to wherever the V sign has this particular meaning?

I don't think I want to conduct a poll for who understands what and where in order to put it all in the entry, I think it is clear enough to say that this is what it means in the UK and that it doesn't have the same meaning the world over