[HN Gopher] The fine art of Italian hand gestures: A vintage vis...
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The fine art of Italian hand gestures: A vintage visual dictionary
(2012)
Author : manchoz
Score : 114 points
Date : 2022-08-05 05:56 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themarginalian.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themarginalian.org)
| gitowiec wrote:
| I didn't know that all these gestures are Italian. People around
| me and myself are used to use them despite we are not Italian
| mprovost wrote:
| This made the rounds last summer during the Euros with the
| Italian sports journalist Tancredi Palmeri tweeting "Stop with
| this stereotype about Italians doing hand gestures. It's not t":
|
| https://twitter.com/bettinghub/status/1415779102460715009
|
| (the original video has been deleted)
| twic wrote:
| A friend of mine from somewhere around Como has a gesture where
| she taps her upper arm with her index finger while making a
| theatrical pained expression. I have no idea what it represents
| or means. She usually does it while reacting to something she
| doesn't like, perhaps particularly being asked to go along with
| someone else's suggestion which she thinks will be arduous.
|
| It vaguely suggests someone shooting up heroin, but i'm not sure
| why that would be relevant.
|
| I have not asked her about it. I think i prefer the mystery.
| tacone wrote:
| It's actually tapping with two fingers on the veins of the
| upper harm. It means what's going on is so tedious that she'd
| prefer to get a jab to escape from it.
| butokai wrote:
| I tend to use with a meaning more nuanced towards "boring".
| What's going to happen is so extremely boring, that I'd better
| be sedated, high on drugs or the like in order to withstand it.
| I can see how the "drug" thing might shift the meaning to be:
| _you_ must be high on drugs in order to suggest something this
| arduous.
| bogomipz wrote:
| I see the book's publication is from 1958 and much of the imagery
| suggests a bygone era. Are all or most of these still in use
| today?
|
| It's amusing to note that the first picture has in the middle of
| the last row, the now ubiquitous "Heavy Metal horns." I remember
| reading an old interview with Ronnie James Dio, who was Italian,
| where he said he picked up the gesture from his Grandmother. It's
| widely accepted that he is responsible for introducing this
| gesture into modern popular culture, non-Italian anyways. Some
| have pinpointed he started using this on stage in late 70's
| during his time in Black Sabbath.
| jaclaz wrote:
| >Are all or most of these still in use today?
|
| Yes, largely (some are more regional).
|
| If you check the link in my post here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32353697
|
| Those are recent (2010) and since they are in video you can
| better recognize them as compared to static drawings or photos.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| from a quick look at the first image of "Napolitan gestures" at
| least money, stealing and wait a moment are still largely in
| use.
|
| Horn sign that legend says RJ Dio introduced by simply flipping
| the way his grandmother did the gesture (we do it palm facing
| the floor, the metal one is palm facing the face) it's still
| very popular as a scaramantic gesture against bad luck.
| riffraff wrote:
| Upwards and palm facing outwards was also common as an
| insult, but "cornuto" has become obsolete as am offense.
|
| We don't even say it to football referees anymore!
| LtWorf wrote:
| The bottom ones scanned from the book, I know and I've used or
| seen them used.
|
| The initial ones, I had never seen some of them.
| phreack wrote:
| Yes, they're still so prevalent in Italy and Italian-descendant
| cultures that I thought they'd be self-explanatory since they
| come to me so naturally. The one on the cover of the book for
| example, is literally just a question mark, with all of the
| various connotations a question mark might have (even as a
| single sentence by itself "?"), and is used so often I can't
| believe other cultures don't have any hand gesture for it nor
| adopted it.
| m33k44 wrote:
| Okay, I need to include this here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZorPpz8_EM
|
| It is a comedy, please don't be offended :)
| prionassembly wrote:
| > Wittgenstein was insisting that a proposition and what it
| describes must have the same 'logical form', the same 'logical
| multiplicity'. Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans as
| meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the
| underneath of his chin with an outward sweep of the finger-tips
| of one hand. And he asked: 'What is the logical form of that?'
|
| > In the introduction to Philosophical Investigations,
| Wittgenstein mentions discussions with Sraffa over many years and
| says: "I am indebted to this stimulus for the most consequential
| ideas in this book".
|
| Wittgenstein wrote two major books, the second of which basically
| undoes everything the first did. In the middle of that is Sraffa,
| presumably triggering a crisis of faith.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Sraffa#Personal_connecti...
| brainzap wrote:
| now I am interested in the vulgar ones
| klez wrote:
| For example: https://youtu.be/wEhLURFsfSg?t=222 which literally
| means "suck my dick", but used in a discourse is more akin to a
| response you give when someone asks you to do something there's
| no way you're going to do.
|
| Also: https://youtu.be/wEhLURFsfSg?t=526 meaning "fucking".
| LtWorf wrote:
| Il gesto dell'ombrello :D
|
| https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesto_dell%27ombrello
| paganel wrote:
| Albertone in a thread about Italian hand-gestures, there's
| nothing more Italian than this. Now, all that is missing is
| some link to a ragionier Fantozzi sketch.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Tipo questo? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJz5p5zrSP4
| sph wrote:
| I had some hard time deciphering the gesture from still images,
| but I have to say it's pretty accurate and I am surprised by how
| I am used to using them when I speak Italian, and how I
| unconsciously avoid them when speaking English. I never thought
| about it.
|
| Now that I live abroad, I wonder if I'm slowly losing that "body
| language", and making myself harder to understand to other
| Italian speakers, entering some uncanny valley where I sound
| fluent, but something's missing. As a trilingual person, this is
| certainly would not be the first time. (The first language I've
| learned was French, I have perfect pronunciation but I've never
| practiced it and it became very rusty over the years, so it's now
| in that uncanny limbo and I actively avoid speaking it)
| bujak300 wrote:
| The unconscious component is crazy, my otalian SO was trying to
| teach me to do some of the gestures correctly but she was not
| able to execute the gestures consciously, only in the flow of
| speech
| sneak wrote:
| Subconscious. Unconscious gestures would not be very
| interesting as they're mostly just snoring.
|
| (I am aware we already lost this battle with the now-
| canonized-as-professional-jargon misnomer term "unconscious
| bias".)
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Reminds me of "The Centipede's Dilemma":
|
| _A centipede was happy - quite!_
|
| _Until a toad in fun_
|
| _Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"_
|
| _This raised her doubts to such a pitch,_
|
| _She fell exhausted in the ditch_
|
| _Not knowing how to run._
| chromerift wrote:
| I'm not Italian, but Argentinian and it's funny how we have most
| of these, though some of the definitions are slightly weird to
| me, for example, the one on the cover means "what", back tips of
| the fingers on the chin means "I don't know". There's also a very
| interesting one we have, idk where it comes from, where one
| closes the fingers and bends the thumb a couple of times,
| sometimes accompanied by saying "minga", which means something
| like "jaja, no way, not doing that".
| prionassembly wrote:
| > back tips of the fingers over the chin
|
| Yes, but the "no me importa" gesture sweeps over the chin.
| chromerift wrote:
| Mine too, forgot to mention.
|
| Also it could mean don't know + don't care depending on the
| facial expression, but I've not seen it as just don't care.
| ceritium wrote:
| The book on Archive:
| https://archive.org/details/speakitalianfine0000muna/
| jaclaz wrote:
| In 2010 a newer dictionary of gestures was made, the Author
| (Fabio Caon) also made a set of videos of the gestures (there was
| a DVD attached to this new dictionary), and published them as
| videos on youtube, links on his page here (Italian):
|
| https://www.itals.it/gesti-degli-italiani
| klez wrote:
| I have that book. Caon was my SO's thesis advisor.
|
| The interesting part about that book is that it also points out
| whether the gesture has a different meaning in other cultures.
| For example it says the gesture for "OK" that you do by making
| a circle with your thumb and index finger has a vulgar meaning
| in Russia (iirc).
| boredemployee wrote:
| in some latin america countries as well
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Brasil only afaik.
| riccardomc wrote:
| It's worth noting is available in a multi-language edition[1].
|
| In Italian weddings is customary to give a "bomboniera" to
| guests, a small party favour as a souvenir and thanks for their
| attendance.
|
| Usually it consists of some formal bullshit like a silver spoon
| or small ceramic thing. My wife and I wanted something a bit more
| fun and Munari's "supplemento al dizionario italiano" become
| ours.
|
| [1]https://www.amazon.it/italiano-Supplement-dictionary-
| Supplem...
| agentwiggles wrote:
| Every time I rewatch the Sopranos, the "non me ne importa"
| gesture gets into my vocabulary for a while. (I think of it more
| as the "vaffanculo" gesture though, as it almost always
| accompanies this phrase in the show).
|
| It has this wonderful quality of vulgar, spiteful dismissal that
| we don't have a good expression for in English - although the
| somewhat common "jerk off" gesture is similar in intent, that one
| is pretty nsfw.
| guythedudebro wrote:
| The fuck you want, a boutonniere?
| raceling wrote:
| > Every time I rewatch the Sopranos
|
| Those are Americans, not Italians.
| wszfahwbwbaha wrote:
| thanks we didn't know
| znpy wrote:
| I wish I could upvote you twice.
| jackallis wrote:
| someone should write a book about Indian hand and head gestures.
| js2 wrote:
| A demonstration by Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato in
| Lina Wertmuller's _The Seduction of Mimi_ :
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mx407UflJQ
| sigil wrote:
| Wonderful, thanks for that. Wertmuller's "Swept Away" (also
| starring Giannini and Melato) is one of my favorite films.
| Wonder how much hand dialog I've been missing!
| js2 wrote:
| The clip is from a longer 4 minute scene with no dialog set
| to the prelude to Verdi's La Traviata (had to look it up...).
| All body language. The full movie is on YouTube and the
| extended scene starts at 34:20:
|
| https://youtu.be/Xo9uf8Q8Pc4?t=2060
|
| (You could argue the scene starts even earlier, at 23 minutes
| in.)
|
| I've seen three of Wertmuller's films. _Mimi_ , _Swept Away_
| , and _Seven Beauties_. Of those, I enjoyed _Mimi_ the most,
| but they were all worth seeing.
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(page generated 2022-08-07 23:01 UTC)