From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 10:34:46 MDT
Hi Alfie
>Yeah, but the Italian meaning is a bit different from what the picture
>says. A more accurate translation would be "What the fuck are you saying?"
>(it's not a polite gesture, except when used between friends)
Is it possible that Firenze and Roma interpret the gesture
with different shadings?
[Hehee: "What exactly are you saying?" is not _that_ different
from "What the fuck are you saying?", but now I know to be careful
of the company in which I'm doing that.]
In this book:
Senza Parole: 100 gesti degli italiani
by Perangela Diadori
L'italiano per stranieri
Bonacci editore, Roma 1990
This gesture appears twice
1) bending from the wrist, to indicate concrete things
(book says: indicare cose o elementi concreti: Moltitudine)
And the book doesn't say anything about it being impolite !
2) fingers opening and closing to express fear
That magazine ad pic can't show these nuances. So there is
another shading to that gesture (1) , which is vulgar!
(I can't wait to try these out ... :-) )
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin
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