Talk to the Hand

Communication is about getting your message across & understanding the message or intent of the person with whom you are conversing. Simple enough. Although I tend to concentrate on the words & their meaning, this is only a small part of communication (as I keep stating) & the things that aren’t words are harder to express using them, which is why we use them & need them!

A classic example is hand waving. Some people wave their hands about more than others. I believe that women tend to be more expressive with their hands. Politicians are very careful about the message that they convey with their hand movements - they have to be powerful without being threatening (except in parliament). TV presenters & advertorialists are very conscious of their hands & making them seem ‘natural’ when the hands often have nothing to say. In this case, the copy-writers haven’t included the hands in the message to be conveyed, so it’s obviously quite hard to speak using only one of the available methods of communication. It’s the equivalent of assuming that the audience only have black & white TVs. To some extent, copy-writers may still think that they’re working for radio …

I digress.

The problem with talking with hands is that there is no shared language. There is no grammar, no dictionary, very few classes for learning the pronunciation - although people like Alan Pease do talk of body language in particular & teach the reading of it. We ‘assume’ that we understand other people, when we’re really applying our own cultural background to their actions. It’s somewhat like two dialects of a language where the nouns are not only different, but often interchanged (like Strine & American English).

Sometimes, a hand movement has meaning that is universal “It’s over there”, “It was THIS big” (note my resorting to capitals as emphasis to indicate tonal change). But at other times, hand movements are distinctly not universal. The European style of “come here” using the whole hand is quite rude to the Japanese (palm upwards), but the Eastern style (palm downwards) is very similar to the English “go away” or “shoo!”. One infamous American President once tried to use a “V for Victory” sign from his cavalcade in London & had it around the wrong way, which is quite distinctly “up yours”. Oops.

Of course, obscure hand motions & actions are useful when you want to insult someone without their realising it - that is, for the benefit of your friends, or else to let off steam. Biting the end of the thumb means very little to most people outside of southern Europe & Shakespearean England. This makes for private jokes, but is not all that useful for conveying the message to its intended recipient - you may as well write them a nasty note in Inuktitut (as used for Inuit - by some Eskimoes).

Bad hand movements can be a distraction if you’re not careful - if your hands are moving radically around, yet are unrelated to your conversation, should the other person be watching your hands or the expression on your face, which is far more likely to be in tune with what you want to express? Don’t take their concentration away unless you are performing some form of linguistic prestidigitation, or else, “Hey Presto”, the point you were trying to make will disappear without a trace.

Next time when you’ve got someone backed up against a wall while you’re talking at them, & your fingers are making threatening actions towards them, spare a thought for how much index fingers look like knives, & whether your meaning is intended to cut them. Even sweeping hand strokes can brush people away.

Or if you’re someone who uses all fingers & the palm of the hand to gently pat the person they’re talking to, could it be interpretted as an affront - an invasion of space - rather than the reaching out to the audience that you intend it to be?

You’ve been speaking this language for some time, & it is definitely time that you learned what it is that you’ve been saying.