Dear Americans and other lifeforms

[burntcopper]

Was re-reading Warren Ellis' Crecy, which has the best one line sum-up of the two-finger gesture possible.

"I can kill you from 200 yards away with these."

Which gets me wondering : what in the nine hells does your one-finger gesture actually *mean*? Seriously, what's it supposed to imitate? Most rude and obscene gestures have some sort of real-life thing behind them. Throat-slitting, the motion of wanking, imitation of how small your John Thomas might be, that fist-pumping gesture which I *think* means 'cuckold/you're fucked' etc, etc.

Woot. The cold has kicked in properly. (got it on tuesday - last person in the dept) Throat not just sore, throat hurting when I cough. YAY. Have produced sign* to point to so I don't have to explain anything or go 'fuck off, will you?' when someone comes over to ask if I'm all right when in the middle of a coughing fit. Already used it once.

Fuck. the body cannot decide what temperature it wants to be today. Heat rash kicked in on the train platform this morning, so spent entire ride to Paddington itching like crazy (and of course freezing once the heat rash died down, because body, that's what happens when you decide to get rid of a bunch of heat quickly when it's a cold morning) and my temperature's just gone up *again*...

:sigh: Is it a truism that all the other girls in the office will turn up looking utterly fabulous when you're feeling grotty? I've seen three stunning tops, two great skirts, one really impressive make-up job and three fabulous hair days walk in the door this morning. Though I did get Emma going yesterday 'Look at me - ooo, it's the turquoise glittery one today.' Appear to have got a bit of a rep for multi-coloured eyeliner.

*To whom it may concern : if you hear me coughing, wheezing, attempting to throw up my lungs, having what sounds like an asthma attack, fighting for breath, etc, IGNORE IT. I don't have asthma or TB, this is me having a cold. Unless it's gone on for months, in which case you have the right to kick me to the GP.

Bollocks. Where the hell do I find accurate slang terms for gay in the '40s? It was invert in the 20s/30s, but I can't find any sites that'll actually tell me what the everyday slang for them was (variations on gay + history + slang + terminology + 1940s bring up giant slang lists with no time stamp or what the laws were). 'Homosexual' was the official polite term, but I can't find what *normal* people used. With a definition of 'normal' being the middle class term *and* the common slang term *and* what the community itself used. Searching on people like Wilfrid Brambell and Kenneth Williams turns out to be sodding useless because all I get are refs to Fantabulosa and the Curse of Steptoe and the fact that Wilf got done for cottaging. Not to mention most of said films - which I saw - took place in the '60s. Celluloid Closet, from what I remember, had bugger all on 1940s UK films. (yes, Pevensies in England post PC fic - I'm involving the parents, who I really need to name. The fic is mostly about the parents' reaction to finding out that Peter is going for career military, but I need to throw in some random comments on the others.) Gah. to little_details I go....

Comments

[gmh.livejournal.com]

what in the nine hells does your one-finger gesture actually *mean*? Seriously, what's it supposed to imitate?

Oookay. I suspect that there are a number of explanations for the more common ones, as every cultural group tends to have its own.

The middle-finger is a straight-up mimicry gesture; the Romans referred to the gesture as 'phallus impudicus'; and it meant exactly the same back then.

(I suspect that the usual size of an index finger also has something to do with the insult.)

The V-sign is a bit more interesting, in that there are two similar possible progenitors which can be traced back a thousand years or so.

Firstly - the mano fico; the sign of the fig; placing your thumb between your index and middle finger (which can be curled into a fist or more loosely held); the hand is then as often as not raised and/or waggled at the offender; it's a gesture supposed to mimic intercourse; essentially, 'fuck you'.

Canto XXV of the Inferno has Vanni Fucci doing it to God:

"At the conclusion of his words, the thief
Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
Crying: "Take that, God, for at thee I aim them." "

Shakespeare refers to the gesture as well in Henry V:

"FLUELLEN
Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice
at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would
desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put
him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.

PISTOL
Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!"

As a politer form, the term 'fig' slipped into language as a minced oath; e.g. 'I couldn't give a fig'.

Secondly and less well-known is a Middle Eastern gesture of the same period (IIRC); instead of shoving your thumb between your first two fingers, you hold your fist up to your face, straighten and spread your first two fingers and poke your nose between them at the person you want to insult; the intended meaning is pretty much identical to the mano fico.

Either of these could well have made their way back to England as a result of the Crusades and survived in a slightly mutated form as the V-sign.


As for the gay slang; I've a couple of books on slang ( - including Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, which runs to some 1300 pages!). As you point out, there are a number of different terms, some of which would definitely not be used in polite society (e.g. 'brown hatter', which is IIRC pre-WWII and definitely 'music hall'). I'll see if I've got anything on the shelf that might be of help.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

*cough*

I believe you pinched one of 'em from me. It was a leaving present from my last set of permanent colleagues who clearly thought my vocabulary needed expanding...

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wasn't thinking of that book, as it's mostly 18th Century slang; which, while wonderful, is not the required period.

I was mainly thinking of Geoffrey Hughes' Swearing; which has a chapter that might have some useful bits of information.

[dario006.livejournal.com]

RE:Slang

I tried looking around myself but I see your problem with date stamps and common usage, I found some stuff on the term Gay first coming to stage/screen about 1933/38 so it's possible it was in more common usuage in the 40's.

"Gay" was first used to refer to a male homosexual in the 1933 play "Young & Evil." Cary Grant used it in the 1938 movie "Bringing up Baby" to refer to a transvestite. Gershn Legman & G.V. Henry mentioned the term in their book Sexual Variations (1941)."


One thing you might want to try is contacting the OED regarding editions around that time and if they have any ideas. You might spark someone's OCD and they'll go searching for you.

Hope you feel better soon hun x

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Right. Hughes has turned up a few, as I thought he might:

(Obviously, the year beside each term is when Hughes records it as coming into common usage:

1914: faggot
1923: fag
1924: queen
1929: homo
1929: pansy
1932: queer

also:

1942: dyke
1954: butch

(I have some reservations about the dating of 'queen'; I'm pretty sure that someone wrote of Julius Caesar that he allowed his favoured troops to call him a queen and mock him if they'd fought well.)

Other contemporary terms: chicken (US-influenced), 'friend of Dorothy' (US origin, definitely post-1939); alas, Cassell's isn't much use, because it doesn't deal with specifics on time and social connotations.

With regard to dario006's comment below, 'gay' was actually associated as a descriptive term for homosexual circles well before it became directly synonymous; the testimony (for the defence) of John Saul, one of the male prostitutes ('professional Sodomites') involved in the Cleveland Street Scandal included his referring to his associates as 'gay'; which at the time was used as a slang word signifying prostitution.

(One other quick note: another form of the 'fico' described below was to suck your thumb at someone; or to put it in your mouth and bite it; hence the reference in the opening scene of 'Romeo and Juliet'.)

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Oops; the Roman term for it was digitus impudicus; I was getting it confused with fungus.

Also; had a chance to raise the subject of insulting gestures with someone from rural Turkey (Trebizond!); she'd never heard of it, so I'm guessing that it may no longer be a current gesture.

(That said, the Ayyubids of C.11th/12th Egypt and Syria have comparatively little in common with modern Turks, so it isn't necessarily a bogus source.)