I like listening to comedy radio. Jo Koy is a frequent presence, known for his coming-of-age comedy, and perhaps gentle Taylor Swift burns at award shows. He talks a lot about his mother from the Philippines, and national characteristics and traits. One of the things he mentions is a tendency for his mother to point using her lips, which he implies is commonplace.
Of course, some other people do as well. I had a First Nations buddy in university who would occasionally point using his lips (especially when drinking). And I saw it occasionally when travelling in Southern India as well.
One can understand that if your hands are full and you need to indicate direction, it is a reasonable way to do it. However, it would not seem to be a very common gesture in Canada based on my experience.
So fight my ignorance. Is this a gesture you use or have seen people use? I am kind of curious about it after hearing Jo Koy mention it.
I’d always heard that was an American Indian custom. Didn’t know about it in the Philippines. The whole point is to not point. When two people are talking between themselves, when one of them scrunches their lips to one side or the other, nobody else is likely to notice. As our folks taught us, pointing is rude.
I just tried doing it myself, and that’s exactly the situation I thought of. I could see it being two people who are talking about someone and pointing without trying to make it obvious. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it on TV, at least. Though they usually also point with their eyes, and may also do a slight head movement.
I’m picturing the trope where the person is talking about someone who happens to be just over there.
A friend of mine is a court reporter who worked independently for awhile, machine-translating in realtime for a deaf high school student, accompanying them to classes. She told be about one time in Math class when she had to type “point elipse”, but she’d never had a reason to enter the word “elipse” into the steno machine’s dictionary yet. Typing the phrase phonetically, it came out “pointy lips”, and mild hilarity ensued.
Extremely common for Navajos, and growing up near the rez a few of us bilagáana (white folks) pick it up as well, though my pointing is a poor imitation.
How am I to imagine pointing with your lips? Is it like pointing with your chin (which I am familiar with and often do myself) while making kissy lips?
I know a woman who is deaf. I know zero ASL, but her daughter and mother both will translate. One day I mentioned that her dog was getting old. The daughter translated and I realized “old” involves stroking an imaginary beard. But I have that beard. I ended up acting offended about “old” and we all had a good laugh.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with a deaf person, through an intermediary, some years back. They asked “So what is it you’re studying?” (I was in grad school at the time). I answered “Physics. Relativity. What Einstein did.” The sign for “Einstein” is apparently a mimickry of his wild hair.
Apparently Encanto included lip pointing as one of Mirabel’s mannerisms.
I also read somewhere there are some common patterns between languages where there are pairs of words like “here” and “there” or “voici” and “voila”, that the vowels are such that pronouncing the one that happens “close” results in your lips pulling back, and the one that happens “far” results in your lips pointing out. The speculation was that this pattern is an artifact of lip pointing.
Why? It’s basic communication… what better way to say “That drawer right there.” or “You’re going to go down THAT road and turn at THAT tree. Not that one, THAT one.”
Ahh, as in “Cut the rope! There’s a knife over THERE!”