Yes, always and if my hands are restrained I can’t speak coherently
Yes, generally but I can refrain if I try to
Not most of the time, but I still do it fairly often
Not often but sometimes in certain situations I do this
Rarely
Never
Other
0voters
Feel free to share details. Personally I don’t do this very often but when I get in ‘teaching mode’ (especially with patients) I sometimes use gestures.
Honestly, the Mrs. has started gesturing a LOT while talking, and I’m trying really really hard to not be annoyed by this, as I can only lose by being annoyed by it.
I think I always have, I will defend it as it just seems to be a learned by early observation trait among Italian-Americans from NYC. Maybe Italians in general.
One theory I saw a while back was when the Italians first arrived and moved into our crappy tenements there were some real language issues as in Italy in the 1890-1920 period, every town and hill in Italia had a different dialect. So the hand signals aided communication and it just stuck.
But countering this is that apparently in large areas of Italy, talking with hand gestures is pretty common also.
Oh, I’m guilty, as are most of my siblings, of the gesticulations get more pronounced and rapid if we’re agitated or excited.
Same. I do it more when I’m experiencing emotions. I can remember a high school drama production where the teacher, who didn’t like me at the best of times, told me “stop talking with your hands—you look like an Italian.” I’m sure I was doing it because I was nervous, but at least I had the presence of mind to say “I am Italian.” Which made no impression on her, but salved my dignity.
I had to think hard about it before I could answer. I don’t use my hands a lot, but if I’m trying to explain something (even on the phone), I will. I’m thinking it’s something you learn - or not - when growing up.
I do it all the time. I don’t even notice it, but, at least growing up, it was remarked upon a lot. When I’m excited about what I’m talking about – and that is quite often – I can’t help but get the full body involved. I also tend to lose track of my volume when I’m really into a conversation and have to be told to drop it a few decibels, or be deliberately concentrating on not talking too loud. Like gesturing, it’s really subconscious.
It’s funny, I went through some executive presentation training where we were guided on (among a dozen other things) how do use our hands when presenting. Which was fine, except at any time after that I saw another executive presenting, I recognized which hand motions they were using in what situations, and it somewhat distracted me.
lol “holding the ball” was indeed one action, and you could vary it, but if the trainer had used the phrase “holding invisible balls of various sizes” I might have lost it.
Just yesterday I was participating in an online conference for work, and midway through explaining something I realized I was gesturing enthusiastically at the laptop camera but the conference video was off so nobody could see me, and I had such a mental hiccup that I stopped short and immediately lost my train of thought.
I gesture a lot with my hands at work as my job involves presentations and I find that it helps getting the message across more efficiently and clearly.
I also do that when I’m comfortable with someone, it’s more fun, especially if they reciprocate.
