[HN Gopher] Teen rescued after showing domestic violence hand si...
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       Teen rescued after showing domestic violence hand signal known on
       TikTok
        
       Author : laurex
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2021-11-08 20:20 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | TravisHusky wrote:
       | Didn't realize this was a thing, cool that it worked.
       | 
       | As a loosely related note, there has been problems in the past
       | where people come up with meanings for hand gestures without
       | knowing the signed language of the region they are in, which
       | leads to people misunderstanding something a person is signing as
       | something completely different. Although probably not a problem
       | in this case, just something to consider if you ever are so
       | inclined to make a manual language.
       | 
       | If anyone was curious in ASL this is basically "B -> M", not that
       | that was on purpose, just a different way this could be
       | interpreted.
        
         | dr_zoidberg wrote:
         | I sometimes do a gesture similar to this one as a habit for
         | cracking my (thumb) knuckles single-handed. Not as an
         | intentional sign first tucking the thumb in the palm, and then
         | traping it in, but rather as a single motion. I wonder if it
         | could be mistaken for this gesture.
        
         | xupybd wrote:
         | My worry would be that as the signal becomes well known abusers
         | will learn it to. Then using the signal will put people at
         | risk.
        
           | notacoward wrote:
           | That is a possibility, but being able to communicate without
           | making a _sound_ might still be useful.
        
         | dhosek wrote:
         | Letter signing is not typical in ASL and in any event BM is not
         | a common letter sequence in English. I would also think that if
         | I made eye contact with someone who signed BM to me, I would
         | have to assume it was this signal or else they were being
         | awfully rude https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/BM#English
        
       | Cerium wrote:
       | A few weeks ago there was a conversation [1] regarding the
       | utility of signals like this, with a common opinion that they are
       | useless. I'm very happy to see that it worked!
       | 
       | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28977870
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-08 23:01 UTC)