# The Victory Sign v the Peace Sign. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 9, 2007, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364 "2007-12-09T06:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/1 "2007-12-09T06:55:34Z")
How did the V victory sign come to symbolize peace too? I assume it started around the 1960s. But when and where exactly did it start and with who? And why did someone decide to use a victory sign, of all things, to mean peace? Thank you in advance to all who reply 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/2 "2007-12-09T07:04:07Z")
Hippies, man. > **[Peace symbols](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_sign)** > > A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a Dove lithograph by Pablo Picasso after World War II. In the 1950s, the "peace sign", as it is known today (also known as "peace and love"), was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a group at the forefront of the peace m > [@wiki](#): > > [edit] V-sign > Main article: V-sign > > A 2003, Los Angeles anti-war protester flashing the peace sign.The “V-sign”, also called the “peace sign” and the “victory sign,” is a hand gesture with the index and middle fingers open and all others closed, facing the viewer. **Originally strictly a sign for victory, it developed into a peace sign during protests against the Vietnam War (and subsequent anti-war protests) and by the counterculture as a sign of peace. Because the hippies of the day often flashed this sign (palm out) while vocalizing “Peace”, it became popularly known through association as the peace sign**. Originally, however, its symbolic meaning was love; signing “love” and saying “peace” was a hippie anthem and mutual greeting. > > John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono later made “Peace and love” an ongoing theme in their relationship and public personae, even conducting a public “sleep-in” (a parallel construction to a favorite hippie theme event during the 60s and early 70s, the “love-in”) in Toronto, Canada, where they refused to leave their hotel bed. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/3 "2007-12-09T17:56:31Z")
What about ‘victory’ vs. ‘peace’ vs. ‘Up yours!’? ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/4 "2007-12-09T18:02:44Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] What about ‘victory’ vs. ‘peace’ vs. ‘Up yours!’? [/QUOTE] Cue video of the former US President George Bush Snr on a visit to Australia, serenely gesturing to the locals to go and fuck themselves. 😃 Poor Bush the Elder hadn’t been advised that the traditional method of flipping the bird in Australia uses two fingers rather than one. They can be held together or in a V shape, but palm inward is _always_ “up yours!”. It was a surreal moment. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/5 "2007-12-09T18:27:48Z")
There was a Jane Fonda pic a few months back floating the net with the same gesture. I had no idea that it meant “up yours” until then. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/6 "2007-12-09T18:57:32Z")
[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory] Hippies, man. > **[Peace symbols](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_sign)** > > A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a Dove lithograph by Pablo Picasso after World War II. In the 1950s, the "peace sign", as it is known today (also known as "peace and love"), was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a group at the forefront of the peace m [/QUOTE] Well yeah, but that doesn’t explain why the war protesters appropriated the victory symbol. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/7 "2007-12-09T19:42:16Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] Poor Bush the Elder hadn’t been advised that the traditional method of flipping the bird in Australia uses two fingers rather than one. They can be held together or in a V shape, but palm inward is _always_ “up yours!”. [/QUOTE] The origins of this sign are unclear but an article in a publication from the [University of Manitoba](http://www.themanitoban.com/2004-2005/1117/article.php?section=culture&article=01) offers an interesting possibility: > [@](#): > > In the British Isles, the V sign, where the palm faces inward with the index and middle fingers raised and spread to resemble a V, can be traced back to the 16th-century, presumably as a variant of the shaming practice of “wearing the horns of a cuckold.” Cuckold refers to a man with an unfaithful wife. The phrase and gesture, often associated with devil’s horns, remarks on the unsubstantiated practice where a village community would gather to collectively humiliate a man whose wife had given birth to a child recognised as other than his own. It is thought that the hapless husband was forced to wear antlers as a symbol of his wife’s infidelity and his inability to stop her. Wikipedia informs that the first definitive known reference to the V sign as an insult is in the works of 16th century French satirist François Rabelais _i.e._ around the same time as described above. Either confirmation or denial is welcome. Wiki also reports the gesture as being especially popular in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland but doesn’t mention the US apart from the Bush _faux pas_ in Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/8 "2007-12-09T19:48:26Z")
panache45 writes: \> Well yeah, but that doesn’t explain why the war protesters appropriated the \> victory symbol. According to this Wikipedia entry: > **[V sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign)** > > The V sign is a hand gesture in which the index and middle fingers are raised and parted to make a V shape while the other fingers are clenched. It has various meanings, depending on the circumstances and how it is presented. > When displayed with the palm inward toward the signer, it can be an offensive gesture in some Commonwealth nations (similar to showing the middle finger), dating back to at least 1900. When given with the palm outward, it is to be read as a victory sign ("V for Victory");... the V sign was being used simultaneously during the Vietnam War by people like Nixon in favor of the war and those like the protesters against it. I suspect that the sign had come merely to mean, “Everything is going well. It’s all good. We will prevail.” The use of the V sign during and after World War II was eventually thought of just as a feel-good symbol. The protesters were saying, “Hey, we feel good about what we’re doing.” As the entry explains, for the protesters it started by meaning, “We all love one another,” and gradually morphed to meaning, “We want peace.” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/9 "2007-12-09T20:47:20Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] What about ‘victory’ vs. ‘peace’ vs. ‘Up yours!’? [/QUOTE] Depends on whether the palm or the back of the hand is aimed out. For Brits, the sweeping motion from below the waist up to eye level makes the difference quite clear. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-victory-sign-v-the-peace-sign/429364/10 "2007-12-09T21:28:40Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] Depends on whether the palm or the back of the hand is aimed out. For Brits, the sweeping motion from below the waist up to eye level makes the difference quite clear. [/QUOTE] I knew that. I was confused by Winston Churchill’s use of ‘Up Yours’ when he was indicating ‘Victory’. I found this on Wiki’s V-sign page: > [@](#): > > Winston Churchill used a V sign in both versions to symbolize “V for Victory” during World War II. Early on in the war he used palm in (sometimes with a cigar between the fingers).[6] Later in the war he used palm out.[7] It is thought that the aristocratic Churchill made the change after it was explained to him what it signified to the other classes in Britain