I know a little ASL

[Roon]

but I am always too chicken to try it out on strangers. Last night I had a dream that I saw some woman at the bus stop signing. So I approached her and greeted her in sign,then she flipped me off!! LOL!! Maybe I am afraid that if i try and sign to someone, I will inadvertently say something insulting or offensive.

[HopeHoops]

1. Just remember - meet is fingers up. Fingers flat means "FUCK".

So "happy to meet you" could come off as "happy to fuck you" if you aren't careful.

[Roon]

2. Yeah,the "hungry" and "horny" signs are very similar

I had a friend that corrected me one time. I was saying "I'm horny" for a long time before I got it right!

[HopeHoops]

3. My wife and I solved that one by combining "horn" with "Y" to make our OWN sign.

We actually learned ASL (small subset) for when we were out in bars - pre-kid era - to be able to communicate when it was just too damn loud. Things like "I GOTS TA PEE!" are quite handy signs to know. As are "That guy's a dickhead" and other such phrases.

When we had our first kid, we tried using it with her and she was able to communicate in sign LONG before she could speak. I'm talking about simple stuff that means everything to a kid at that age - I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, More, Banana, Cracker, Peas, Milk, etc. The other two girls similarly used it in the pre-speaking period of their lives. The REALLY funny thing is that my eldest is a sophomore in college now and ASL is one of the things she's focused on. Her instructor has been deaf since birth and there is absolutely no verbal activity in the classroom. Her teacher is the one who I quoted in my last post.

[Roon]

4. Neat!

For some reason there are a LOT of gay deaf guys,so I knew enough ASL to cruise them back in my dating days.

I once asked a buddy why he thought there were so many hearing impaired guys in the gay community. He said it was was because, "Girls are mean!"...lol

One of these days I am going to take an ASL class and learn more. I have an ASL dictionary and of course you can get any sign from the internet.

[HopeHoops]

5. "girls are mean" - ROFL!! And I MEAN it. That's funny!

Well some of the signs are a little harder to come by - like "asshole" and "shit" (which we primarily use to form the compound word "shithead"). There's some debate about "penis" and "vagina" and apparently a few different ways to sign them, but we're sticking with the ones we learned 25 or so years ago.

"BEER" on the other hand seems to be pretty universal. :beer:

[Roon]

6. Oh yeah!!!

and you can always spell it out if you don't know the actual sign.

[HopeHoops]

7. Her teacher is rough about that - no individual letters - it has to be one motion.

But as for my wife and me, we spell out a SHITLOAD of things because we don't know the sign. I have exceptionally good hearing in the upper and lower ranges (test 100%), but if there is ANY kind of white noise, I'm close to deaf. I suppose that might have something to do with listening to early 70's era Genesis, King Crimson, etc. with the volume at eleven.

[Roon]

8. I inherited my hearing impairment from my father

I do very well with the hearing aids, but without them, I am deaf. I can hear the voice, but I can't understand what they are saying.

[KamaAina]

11. The signs for "hamburger" and "make love" are similar, too

both involve a motion similar to forming a hamburger patty.

By the way, DU stalwart Hawkeye-X is Deaf and is in Denver. Maybe you two could share some signs?

[Roon]

14. Oh yeah, I met hawkeye during the DNC..

It was chaotic so we really didn't get to talk much. :-)

[BlancheSplanchnik]

9. hey Roon, I'm a Sign Language interpreter...here's my take

as someone who was in the Deaf community for a long time, when I lived in town, I may have some insights for you. Now I live in the boonies. There're no Deafies out here and I live too far to go into town to socialize. I work at a college and now that I'm "of a certain age", the chit chatty friendships that used to happen rarely do anymore. Once in a while there will be a student who chit chats with a mom-aged woman, but it's rare rare rare.

anyway, going up to Deaf strangers to say "Hi, I know a little sign" is iffy. It depends a lot on who the person is (some are open to cultural ambassadorship among non-signers--usually they'd tend to be more able to communicate orally), and what the situation is, plus their mood at the moment. For example, it would happen to me and some of my ex-s sometimes--we'd be in the middle of a conversation, and someone who barely could communicate would come up nervously and kind of barge in on us. It was usually pretty annoying.

It's different if you're fluent and say hi to someone, like if you're out of town and visiting a different town, missing Deaf chit chat. But still, that's a matter of clearly being fluent enough to say, "Hi, I'm a signer too" with the implied question, "are you in the mood to chat?"

Deaf people get tired of strangers who know a tiny bit of sign stopping them in the midst of their thoughts to tell them how their kids are learning "milk" and "mommy" in nursery school, and how beautiful sign language is, and how do you sign "Merry Christmas"....... :P

Once my Capital D DEAF boyfriend and I got interupted in a tiny mall in some backwater town in North Carolina by some guy who knew a little sign. Holy shit!!! Guess he was a member of the local KKK, that we had seen a sign for up the road. *eeek*

[Roon]

12. Great info blanch

I see where you are coming from.

On the other hand, I have had deafies see my hearing aids and approach me signing. I guess it just depends on the situation.

[Haole Girl]

10. Just explain you are new at it...

in my experience, even if a person isn't good at signing, it's nice for people to try! I worked with a woman who was hearing impaired. She shared an enclosed office. I learned to sign pretty quickly. It was easy... just takes practice. The more you practice, the better you'll be. :-)

[Roon]

13. I do that, i can sign that I know little ASL

and that I have a hard time READING ASL. I can carry on a three minute conversation! :o