Finger counting gives away your nationality
bbc.com
bbc.com
I wondered (but never did find pictorial evidence) if it might have to do with the common Japanese gesture for "come this way," which, by happenstance, is almost identical to the rest of the world's gesture for "go away."
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/to...
If you had flashed OK hand gesture, would the barman have poured 3 pints, or thought you were a member of a fringe group?
For what it's worth, this hand sign being a hate dogwhistle is pretty much entirely an invention of 4chan.
They set out to transform a symbol, and they succeeded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture#White_power_symbol
If you think it isn't real because it was made up, Vonnegut's Mother Night has you covered: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Right now this new 'perception' is pretty limited to a certain US-centric news bubble. Everyone outside that bubble in the US, and generally people everywhere else, are likely to laugh in your face if you tried to convince them the OK gesture is a hate symbol now.
Your average person hasn't even heard of this inane controversy. I for one have to seek out the kind of demographic who thinks that way online - because nowhere else could I even find anyone.
It's impossible to take these claims seriously. The media will publish anything that gets clicks, no matter how exaggerated or even fabricated, the people making up these claims know they'll get instant coverage and spread their 'cause', and the people spreading the idea that some loser somewhere saying "uh, the middle finger stands for the monolithic purity of the white race" is actually a threat to the fabric of society just enjoy having another thing to be morally panicked by.
The swastika was a symbol of good luck, the infinity of creation and the unconquered, revolving sun for millennia. Now it's the symbol of the Nazi party and their atrocities. It's not fair, but that's how symbols work. Their meanings can change when new meanings are ascribed to them.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white...
If a bunch of far-right dipshits want to rally around a cartoon frog and what used to be an innocuous hand gesture, then the meaning of those symbols is going to shift. You're the one playing into their hand. You're the one letting the cryptos remain crypto, instead of illuminating and naming their behavior, for shame.
He didn't lose his job because of 4chan, but because of ostensibly well-intentioned midwits who believe "4chan succeeded in transforming a symbol" and "fake things can be real". Truly, this type of rationalization is the Bell Curve meme in action.
He was fired because of the reaction -- engineered by 4chan -- of over-intellectualizing social justice nabobs who attend rallies and protests. You guys were literally told the punchline of the joke and still walked right into it.
Obviously the twitter hive-mind went too far in singling this one guy out, and SDG&E colossally fucked up in not doing basic due diligence before firing him. That doesn't change the fact though that there are people out there who do indeed use the hand sign to unironically mean exactly the things that 4chan set out to convince people that it meant. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending otherwise is nothing short of willful ignorance.
The false information that this gesture means anything has everything to do with that man being fired, and contributes absolutely nothing to the awfulness of the Christchurch shooting, but you feel there is somehow an equivalence? Not only that, but you think there's moral superiority afforded to you for making this observation?
https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/08/08...
1. An army supporting the continuation of the enslavement of black peoples.
2. A group (KKK) who would ride out and lynch black people.
3. A very small number of people who fought Nazis.
4. Neo-nazis.
1 out of 4 isn't bad, I suppose...
The symbol became irresistible to that guy after watching liberals lose their minds at it. If it hadn't bothered the libs, it would have no use to him.
Semantic quibbling over the provenance of the symbol is a distraction from the violent ethos and activities of those who adopted it.
I think you're underestimating lib owning as a motivational factor for these guys.
Not sure why you claim witches aren't real. I know plenty of witches. While they may not be green skinned and fly on broomsticks that melt in water, there are plenty of people that call themselves witches nevermind whatever characture you have in mind.
In this specific case, I think the expected answer is to confirm the number by flashing the same sign. A nod would also work, but be potentially less clear/easier to be missed.
The ok gesture would likely have worked as well, since in France they start counting from the thumb. I don't think the fringe group association is well known in France.
In this situation; as a Frenchy; I would have repeated the count to confirm while nodding. Or waved my hand while shaking my head to refuse.
We may use the OK sign to signify 'au poil' (very fine) most often with pinched lips (mock Italian face).
I'm assuming the V gesture you are referring to is the one that consists of holding up both index finger and middle finger, rather than the one with thumb and index finger.
> This origin legend states that English archers believed that those who were captured by the French had their index and middle fingers cut off so that they could no longer operate their longbows, and that the V sign was used by uncaptured and victorious archers in a display of defiance against the French.
I guess that's all the keywords needed in order read the original comment fully.
... It must be somewhat awkward to play Rock Paper Scissors among friends. LOL
"I’ve always used the traditional thumb approach (the norm for NZ)."
I also can't imagine anyone (at least in NZ), who would be otherwise inclined to give you a ride, somehow getting irate about it either.
See also: how many times I've unconsciously started pumping my own gas when I drive through Oregon even though I "know" not to.
Yeah https://web.archive.org/web/20100611222125/http://biae.clems...
It's hard for me to connect your example of filling gas in Oregon to being reflexively insulted. Is that how you feel in your car, reflexively offended by Oregonian gas stations before your cultural sensitivity has time to resurface? Again, I have to say that I am sure personal differences are strong here, because I don't feel an uncontrollable bodily urge to jump put and fill up the tank within 140-220ms [1] of arriving at a gas station before my consciousness kicks in and I can make decisions again.
[1] From your linked article.
What I found is that there seems to be huge difference in cultures about how offended one can be from language (verbal/non-verbal).
Obviously, perceived threat is a different thing altogether!
You can easily communicate numbers 1 through 10 to just about anyone around the globe by holding up the corresponding number of fingers. But when it comes to 11 and up, you're generally not going to be able to communicate those numbers in a universally recognizable way. (Although "flashing" one's hands to represent intervals of ten is somewhat well understood.)
On the other hand, it's possible to use your fingers to count to numbers higher than 10, using whatever system appeals to you, regardless of whether others can understand it. The article talks about using the segments between each knuckle.
There's even a further distinction to be made here, though, between using your fingers to count and using your fingers to maintain state. You might, for instance, be able to easily use knuckle segments to count. But to maintain state, you need to make some movement with your fingers (e.g. bending a knuckle) with each transition period and then hold that new position for some period of time. And that can be hard to do with many finger positions.
For the numbers 6-10 China have hand gestures where number of fingers held up does not correspond to the number.
I was confused by this when I wanted to buy something and the lady crossed her two index fingers.
I took it to mean that the item was not for sale (out of stock), but later learned that this is the hand gesture for the number ten.
This is tangential, but why do people count to themselves using fingers? Why not just count in your head?
- JP: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic3-box-jap.jpg
- US: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic3_md_us_cover.jpg
2: https://i.imgur.com/J7MaBUq.jpg
3: https://i.imgur.com/wORrZjC.jpg
Where I grew up, several states north of the Carolinas, three is pretty much always the index/fore + middle + ring fingers. Prior to seeing Jordan do that I didn't recall having noticed someone counting / signaling three with the pinky instead of the index.
It all depends on whether you were writing it or saying it, "1 + 1 = 10" is true in binary but "one plus one equals ten" is not, not even in binary.
Let's be fair, a 5 year is only in kindergarten, so I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be fully expecting a 5 year old to be talking about binary or even fully educated in other counting methods than base 10. That doesn't make them dumb. I'm sure that teacher could teach you things without calling you dumb.
You even do it in this comment, condescendingly,
>I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be [...] fully educated in other counting methods than base 10
Honestly, it's not that big of a deal to know binary or not.
But anyway, that aside, you completely missed the point of my comment. Whew.
I got your point that 10 in binary is not actually base 10 10, but 2 in base 10. It was just not worth commenting as it was a discussion about a 5 year old conversation not the semantics of math.
I feel like making sure the absolute fundamentals are well ingrained in your kid is way more important than trying to teach them binary.
Important stuff like learning the alphabet. How to read simple books. Things like that.
Replace counting in other bases with “theoretical physics” or “woodworking” and it doesn’t read that way either.
I think this xkcd is relevant here: https://xkcd.com/2501/
As a side note, comparing the complaints in "New Math" (from 1965) to those offered about Common Core is educational :)
0 – one
00 – two
000 – three
Given that most people cannot move their ring finger independently of their middle finger, this seems like a stretch.
I have trouble with some positions due to the ring/pinkie connection, but for me it's more of an internal count anyway, so something like counting a 'down' finger as '1' instead of '0' makes it a lot more comfortable, or even '1' is finger touching a surface, '0' is not - which can involve moving a digit only a few mm or so.
The 1023 thing does require fine motor control of at least ten appendages, though even legs-arms-tongue gets you to 32, if a bit inconveniently.
> In India, for example, they use the lines between the segments of the fingers to count. This means each digit can represent four numbers and the whole hand can represent 20.
Which is false. This method is indeed "taught" (folk, not academia) in India (and Japan), but it's not the way a majority of natives will actually count in everyday situations.
There are indeed important cultural distinctions re:counting in areas (like tally marks), but articles like these which are plausible yet false (this isn't a shibboleth at all) muddy the waters.
The popularity of 12-based systems is due to the fact that 12 is divisible by 2, 3, and 4.
https://www.businessinsider.com/order-a-beer-like-a-german-2...
The character played by Fassbender at one point explains his peculiar accent by being born and raised in a village near Piz Palü (an hommage by Tarantino to "White Hell of Piz Palü" a 1929 silent movie). However, this mountain is located in Switzerland, right by the italian border, far away from Germany. Still, his cover is blown by a tiny mistake on how he orders beer while everyone glances over the glaring inconsistency of his birthplace.
In the context of the special interest that the film devotes to the subject of language, locating the birthplace of the character near Piz Palü is also a very clever move. It is located in the canton of Graubünden (canton of the Grisons), which is the only trilingual Swiss canton (German, Italian and Romansh).
Another side-note: "White Hell of Piz Palü" is also directly quoted in the film: it is shown in the cinema where the finale takes place. And this again is an hommage to (among others) Leni Riefenstahl, who Tarantino admired very much. She played one of the main roles in "Piz Palü".
[1] https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=sol-003:1994:69::643 (In German)
Some of the scenes (landscape shots and the avalanche/crevasses action sequences) hold up quite well IMO.
This could explain the accent/dialect, but it would definitely raise more eyebrows than ordering a beer with the wrong finger.
The business insider article also claims people start counting with their thumb in Portugal but I start with the index finger and while I’m not sure everyone else does it, I think using the 3 middle fingers to represent the number 3 (like the British spy) is far more common than using the thumb.
Our spoken and written language is a mess of inconsistencies, why shouldn't our numeracy be!
If I start counting index-1, middle-2, ring-3, my thumb holds down the pinky to display 3 fingers.
Until just now, I had never tried, so I assume it is a practice thing.
Edit: should have read further in the thread. i'm clearly not the only one
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/media/jeopardy-h...
It is all very arbitrary. The Quentin Tarentino scene was very unconvincing. Fassbinder's character was well travelled, and could have any number of reasons for having a different habit. I bet there were and are places in Germany that differ from the common form, and even that match the English convention; and places in England that match Germany's. (But probably not Russia's.)
Similarly, somebody who left their shoe at the scene of a firefight, if not stupid, would toss the other one immediately.
laughs in piano I think I can move multiple fingers independently and concurrently thanks to a lot of piano drills!
My mother does this, and additionally used to do arithmetic this way.
She never really taught us how to do math this way.
The first part is true, but not the second part. You use the thumb as a pointer to track the lines on the other 4 fingers. So you count up to 16 on each hand. Besides, the thumb has 1 line segment less than the other fingers.
I actually use it every now and then, for example ordering 2 beers at a bar.
V with back of the hand/knuckles facing out would the insult -- supposedly originating from English archers insulting the French at the battle of Agincourt. According to legend, the French would cut off the index & ring fingers from captured English soldiers so they couldn't draw their bow string. So the English would wave the two fingers in the V formation in the general direction of the French in order to insult them! At least that's the legend anyway ...
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...
"How money is counted in different countries"
Still, I'm never able to memorise it, no matter how many times I learn it.