I’ve been wondering a bit about hand gestures, specifically the ‘V’ sign.
Aetc
We’ve been seeing it all over the media recently, captioned as both the ‘Victory Sign’ and the ‘Peace Sign’ - depending basically on interpretation. :dubious:
While some folk will say that the classic Churchill ‘V for Victory’ is fingers inwards - I think it’s become clear in the following half century that the masses don’t care. The fingers-outwards version turns up everywhere people get on camera, and doesn’t seem to mean ‘peace’ as much as ‘yay, I’m here’.
Then there is the Japanese bunny-ears version. Other folk do it too, but nowhere near as much as Japanese girls on camera. They sometimes leave fingers together looking like ‘scouts honor’ (and then there’s ‘toilet-posture’ :eek: which is even odder)
When stuck behind a friends (or enemys) head, this to me has echoes of the ‘cuckold’ horns gesture as found in most old European cultures - but obviously this classical interpretation has no bearing on what the giver means these days.
So please folk, if you have some input, take into account that a signal means what the user thinks it means - and the kids waving V’s around on TV might not know either interpretation. So don’t hack at the photo-editors for ‘getting it wrong’ - you might as well complain that the people in the picture were ‘getting it wrong’ by your interpretation - which would be churlish.
Anyway, the cuckold horns brings me to the ‘Sign of the devil’ - which I’ve always thought looked too similar to the ‘Hang Loose’ surfer wave to be really evil 
Is it all just a neo-satanist/heavy-metal thing or was it used in ancient times? (the devil-horns, not ‘hang loose’ - although the background on that one would be nice too)
… oh yeah, and when I was growing up, the Churchill ‘V’ flipped in the playground meant ‘Up Yours’ (your nostrils, I guessed) and ‘giving the (one) finger’ was much worse. Where did the odd phrase ‘flipping the bird’ come from? I have heard that graphic gesture dates back to Ancient Rome!
Phew! OK, plenty of food for thought there - not exactly a single question, but can anyone add background or more examples to this little lot?